Saturday, January 5, 2013

Here are some suggestions on how to buy Tax Liens Online

By Dale Poyser


Find out If Tax Lien Investing is Something you would enjoy

Even before you choose to become a tax lien investor, you should learn about the pros and cons

You must understand some typical terms and methods like bidding down the interest, bidding on the premium, bidding on the ownership and redemption periods. When you get to the point where you have a good understanding of tax lien investing you should then determine if this suits your personality.

If you determine that Tax Lien Investing is something you would like, read on!

Locate a good Tax Lien Web Site

Finding a tax lien website is actually quite simple. Tax lien sales are done at the county level, not the state level. So you should start with the county website.

You could use the google search engine and enter terms like "buy tax liens in texas" or "counties in texas with tax lien sales." Replace texas with whatever state you are interested in. For example, if I wanted to invest in a county in Florida I would type in "Florida Tax Collector" in the Google search engine.

This will provide you with a list of results that will allow you to either contact the tax collectors office directly OR (if available) sign up for auctions online.

Sign up With some Tax Lien Websites

Keep in mind that not all Tax Lien auctions are available online so your county of choice may not be available.

You should be prepared to provide personal information about yourself such as your social security number, name, address, etc. You might need to set up an account and or provide a deposit which will be required if you want to be a bidder. There could be a minimum requirement to register as a bidder. Don't worry it is refundable.

Understand how the Tax Lien Bidding process works

There are quite a few ways to bid during tax lien sales auctions. In the event that there is more than one tax lien investor one of several bidding methods are used.

Depending on the laws of the county, the bid winner will be determined by one of the five methods below. Bid Down the Interest.with this method, investors will bid against each other to see who will accept the lower interest rate. In some cases the interest rate can go as low as 0%, but this is rare.

Premium.With this method investors are fighting to see who will pay the most for the lien. In some counties the additional premium does not earn any interest and may not be refundable. Colorado is a state that uses the premium bid method.

Random Selection.bidders are selected randomly when this method is used. In most cases a computer does the random selection but this can vary. Nevada uses the random selection method.

Rotational Selection. Using this method the liens are offered to the bidders in sequential order. If the first bidder passes on the lien, the next bid ticket holder gets priority of the lien. Bidder 1 will have to wait until all the other bidders have had a chance to bid before his or her turn comes up again. The bidding process continues in this sequential way until all the liens have been presented.

Bid Down the Ownership. The winning bid goes to the tax lien investor willing to accept the least percentage of ownership on the lien. For example, an investor may decide to take a lien on only 85% of the property. If the lien is not redeemed, the bid winner only receives 85% ownership of the property with the remaining 15% owned by the original owner. In actuality, very few investors will bid on liens for less than full ownership to the property.

So in the even there are multiple bidders on the same tax lien, the random selection method will be used. Liens that are not purchased at the auction are turned over to the county. Some states allow "over the counter" purchases of liens not sold at auction.




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