How Other People’s Delinquent Property Taxes Can End Up Making You Rich

If you’ve stumbled onto this article, it’s likely you were just searching Google or some real estate websites trying to find out more about how to invest in tax delinquent property. There’s no debate – it’s arguably the most profitable investment in real estate you can make. But you’re not the only one who’s figured that out, so you’ll need to take the “backdoor” route to buying delinquent tax property if you want to make the big bucks.

This “backdoor” method is simply to buy the property from the tax delinquent owners themselves. The secret is buying the property after the tax sale. Owners often get a year to pay off their back taxes after the property has been sold – and during that year it’s do or die, pay up or lose all. Approaching the redemption deadline, if they haven’t paid the taxes, you can bet they’ll be ready to sell to you for a fraction of the property’s worth.

If they can’t pay, and you can’t find them, this presents another fantastic opportunity. In many states, when you lose your house, you lose all the equity, and whatever money the home brings at tax sale is kept by the government. But in about half the states in the US (and all, for mortgage foreclosures) the overbids – that is, the amount bid at the tax sale over what was due in taxes- are held for the previous owners.

Guess how often they realize this? Worse yet, the government gets to keep the money if it’s not collected in time. You can provide a valuable service while making a ton of cash by locating these funds and then locating their owners, and offering to collect their missing money on their behalf for a finder’s fee. Since these funds aren’t subject to money finder caps, you can charge 40-50% or more, depending on how complex the case is. The owners are clueless about where this money is coming from (especially when it’s a missing heir type of situation) and will remain so, losing out big time, without your help.