Here’s a video with Lenny Rudolf, one of my former students, who had success in investing in tax lien certificates in his home state a little over 3 years ago, and has since gotten deeds to 3 more properties in Colorado!

Have you thought about a California timeshare?

The State of California has a lot of online tax deed sales. The problem is that California tax sales are extremely competitive. Although the bidding starts at back taxes – it usually gets bid up close to market value. That’s because the real estate market in California has been soaring. So much so that many California residents have left the state for Nevada or Arizona, just to find an affordable place to live. When prices rise like that, investors are willing to pay more for houses, because they know that prices are increasing. The bottom line is that you need a lot of money to buy a single-family house at a tax sale in California.

But what a lot of people don’t know is that some California counties have a lot of timeshares in their tax sales. In fact, some counties will have special tax sales just for timeshares! The bidding on these timeshares is less competitive than the bidding on single-family houses, and the opening bid is also usually much lower.

Riverside County has a timeshare tax sale at least once a year. Bidding in their last sale started as low as $2,111. Since the opening bids are lower in this sale, the deposit that you need to register is also lower – only $800 as opposed to the $5000 required deposit in many of the other California counties. There is also a $35 non-refundable fee that you will need to submit along with your deposit in order to register. Other counties have timeshares in their regular tax sales.

Learn more about how you can participate in California and other online tax deed auctions from the Online Tax Deed Sales course.

The Maryland Tax Sales Are Going on Now!

Did you know that the redemption period in Maryland is only 6 months? Maryland tax sales take place in May each year, and some of the counties that have online sales have already closed registration for their online auctions. But a few have just opened up for registration and a couple will open for registration soon.

The state of Maryland has a unique bidding procedure for tax liens. Premium is bid at the auction, but you don’t pay all the premium at the tax sale. Most of the counties collect what is referred to as “high bid premium” in addition to the lien amount, immediately after the tax sale. The investor does not pay the entire premium amount unless the lien does not redeem. The entire bid amount must be paid in order to get the deed to the property after a tax lien foreclosure.

What is High Bid Premium?

High bid premium is actually a very small amount of what is bid. If the winning bid is less than 40% of the assessed value of the property, no high bid premium is paid at at the sale. The entire premium only needs to be paid if the lien is foreclosed.

High bid premium is calculated as 20% of the difference between the bid amount and 40% of the assessed value of the property. Here’s an example: If the property is assessed at $100,000 and you bid a $50,000 premium at the tax sale, you owe the amount of the lien + $2,000 (20% of $10,000). But if you bid $40,000, or anything less than that, you don’t pay any premium at all at the tax sale, just the amount of the lien. You do have to come with that $40,000 (or whatever premium you bid), however, if you foreclose on the property. If you’re still a little confused about high bid premium, you can find a more thorough explanation in this article: https://taxlieninvestingtips.com/2011/03/30/questions-about-maryland-tax-sales.

High bid premium is not the only unusual aspect of bidding at the Maryland online tax sales. Some of the counties that have online tax sales don’t actually have live online bidding. Instead you have to register online for the tax sale and then submit your bids to the county on the day of the tax sale, either by mail, fax, e-mail, or digital upload – depending on the county. It’s very important to register early for the tax sale, as some counties have deadlines for registration well ahead of the day of the sale. And since bidding procedures are different in the different counties, you need to read the terms and rules for the sale carefully, so that you get your bids in on time.

Another Unusual thing about Maryland tax sales is that the interest rate varies by county. There can be a big difference in the interest rate from one county to another. Just to give you an idea of what a big difference there is from one county to another; Frederick county has an annualized interest rate of 8% and Prince George’s County has an annualized interest rate of 20%. Most of the other counties have rates of either 12% or 18% per annum.

We now have a specific done with you training just for the Maryland Online Tax Lien Sales. It consists of 4 modules with video and audio training and links to resources and checklists. Find out more about the Done With You training for Maryland at  https://taxlienlady.com/Maryland.

You asked for it! New Tax Lien Investing Tips Podcast episodes. We were the only Tax Lien Podcast on iTunes since we started our podcast in 2007. I don’t know if we’re still the only one. All I know is I’ve had a few people ask me when we’re going to do it again.

When we first came out with our iTunes podcast, we published a couple of episodes each month. But then we got busy with all of our other activities and let our podcasts slide. I’m happy to report that we’ve started our podcasts again, after almost a year of no activity. You can listen to our latest podcast – and I know that you’ll want to take notes on this one. It’s all about my 5-point checklist for making money with tax liens or tax deeds. You can listen to the podcast HERE or look for Tax Lien Investing Tips on iTunes.