Decisions, Decisions

There were 2 different tax sales that I could have gone to today. The Monroe County upset tax sale was today, but there were also 8 different tax sales going on in New Jersey, most of them at or around the same time. I could have attended a deed sale in the Pennsylvania county that I live in or one of the tax lien sales in New Jersey. Since I had a few prior liens at one of the New Jersey tax sales, that’s the one that I attended. And since this is the first tax sale in New Jersey that I attended this season, I noticed some differences from last year.

So what is changing regarding tax lien sales in New Jersey?

Although I was able to get the liens on properties that I was a prior lienholder on at 18%, I only got one other small lien and that was at 2%. I was willing to bid down to 2% because I know that I can pay subsequent sewer taxes (this was a sewer lien) and get 8% on my subs. Even small sewer liens went at premium. In NJ the interest rate can be bid down to 0% and then premium can be bid for liens. The odd thing about this sale is that both individual investors and institutional investors were willing to pay premium for small sewer liens but the larger liens went at 18% to one of the institutional investors.

There were only 2 large companies bidding at this sale, the rest of us were small investors. It seems that while they both were willing to bid premium on small liens one of the companies did not bid on the larger liens and the other one got the 2 nice larger liens that were in this sale (both around $5000) at 18%. In the past these companies would have bid these liens into high premiums. This makes me think that some of these larger companies may have a lack of funding at the moment, why else would they bid on only small liens?

The other thing that has happened in New Jersey is that many of the big players have dropped out, or at least slowed down a little, this would have been wonderful for the smaller investors except that a couple of other institutional investors have taken over and expanded their territory to cover the entire state. So no matter what tax sale you go to in NJ, even if the old players aren’t there, you will always have at least 2 of the bigger companies bidding.

There have also been some procedural changes and changes in how things are bid at the tax sale. Most tax collectors will no longer allow an investor to announce that they are a prior lienholder, so you may not be able to get liens at 18% on properties that you hold a prior lien on. This is another reason to pay the subsequent taxes on any of your liens before the tax sale. Also now NJ tax collectors are requiring that you send them a copy of the recorded tax lien certficate for their file. They need a copy of the recorded certificate because that shows the county book and page number where the lien is filed.

Looking for tax sales to go to this fall?

It’s fall tax sale season and time to get ready to bid at the tax sale. Whether you’re a tax lien investor or a tax deed investor you can find tax sales to go to in the fall. Fall is my favorite time to go to tax sales in New Jersey, there are so many tax sales to choose from with many of the municipalities holding tax sales from September through December. Many of the municipalities who are on a calendar year will have a tax sale in December, making that a really busy month for tax sales throughout the state. Another great state for tax lien investing that conducts most of their tax sales in the fall is Illinois, and Illinois is the state with the highest interest rate – 36% per annum. And neighboring Illinois, some of the Indiana counties also have tax sales in the fall. Looking for online tax lien sales? Colorado counties have their tax lien sales in the fall and some of them are online.

If you’re looking for tax deeds you can check out the deed sales in Pennsylvania. It’s time for the upset tax sales that take place in some of the PA counties in September. You can find online tax deed sales in Michigan throughout the fall season. And Florida counties have their deed sales throughout the year, some of which are online.

Learn about bidding procedures

Wherever you plan on investing, whether it’s a tax lien sale or tax deed sale and whether it’s in person or online, one thing is certain. And that is that if you are going to be successful you will have to bid. Each of these tax sales has different bidding procedures. For most of the deed sales, it’s pretty simple, the price of the deed get’s bid up. But the bidding at some tax lien sales can be complicated. In the next member’s webinar training for taxlienlady.com we’ll be covering bidding at the tax sale. This is also Lesson 5 of Tax Lien Lady’s Build Your Profitable Tax Lien Portfolio Course. Find out how you can join the members area today and get access to this one time webinar training, plus much more at www.TaxLienLady.com/Bidding.htm.

Happy and Prosperous Investing,

Joanne

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