subject: Back Taxes Property Is For Sale In Your Area - How To Get It [print this page] Unfortunately, in the current economic climate, property being sold for back taxes is at an all-time high. As more and more people find the task of home ownership to be too cumbersome, and more and more people find themselves unable to come up with the hundreds to thousands of dollars to pay their government property taxes, back taxes property is cropping up everywhere. Their loss can be your gain, if you play your cards right.
If you're looking to invest in back taxes property, there are a couple ways to go about it. Don't make the mistake of thinking you can pick up a nice property- like one you'd like to move right into- for the amount of back taxes owed. This never happens. What actually happens at the tax sale auction, which is held monthly or yearly by county, is that there are many bidders all trying to get the same properties, and the nice ones will be bid up to close to what you'd pay on the open market. The other pitfalls are that you rarely, if ever, can inspect the interior of the property you're bidding on (eek... what nightmares lie within?), and you will have to pay the full amount, in cash, at the sale.
If you do end up winning the bidding war and purchasing a property, what you are actually purchasing in most states is either a lien, which will allow you to petition to foreclose at some point in the future, or the deed, but you will have to wait a certain period of time before you can have it. It is very rare that you will actually get the deed and access to the property right then and there (only a few states do it that way). Usually, the counties give the delinquent owners a year or more to come in and "redeem" the property- that is, pay off the back taxes, plus the accrued fees. In this case, you would get your money back along with whatever the state ordained interest rate on that money is. This scenario plays itself out almost every time, so if you're looking to acquire back taxes property this way, you'll almost always be out of luck.
A much better way to obtain the actual properties themselves is to buy them directly from the delinquent owners just before they are about to be lost for good. These owners, in that time frame, are a unique subset of sellers who are often willing to sell you their deeds for pennies on the dollar. This is the only surefire method to acquire back taxes property for cheap, and without a ton of competition. It's also a great way to find a cheap home to live in yourself.
by: Olliver Kennedy
welcome to Insurances.net (https://www.insurances.net)
