RESEARCHING TAX DEEDS

Buying tax deeds is a little tricky. In this situation the county is selling the property for the back taxes and interest. Notice that I said the property and not the certificate. Tax Deeds are issued to investors who buy the property for the back taxes. You may need to clear up any problems in the tax title through a “quiet title action”. The quiet title action basically is a suit brought against anyone who may have an interest in the property. If nobody shows up to the court with a better claim, the court will issue you a decree granting a clean and clear title. Of course you do not want to proceed with a quiet title action until the redemptive period is up.

Before purchasing a Tax Deed you need to do your due diligence. I am going to suggest at this point that you physically be in the county where you plan on purchasing Tax Deeds. Once there you will find locating and researching the properties a lot easier.

DETERMINE THE USE AND MARKET VALUE OF THE PROPERTY

As a tax deed foreclosure investor your goal is to obtain valuable properties. To do this you will need to find out the specific use and assessment of the properties that you are considering.

You can determine the value of the parcel a couple of different ways. You can always check with an appraiser but that could get expensive. You need to consider cost effective alternatives.

A simple way to determine the general value of the property is to look at the total amount of delinquent back taxes that are due. Typically the amount of property taxes due are significantly higher on a valuable property than the amount due on a worthless property.

As mentioned earlier, you can use the records at the county assessor’s office to quickly locate valuable properties. By utilizing these records you can easily locate those properties with the highest market value.

The county will be able to tell you the assessors fair market value/appraisal for any property to which you are researching. Notice that the land has improvements. This could mean the property may or may not have a house on it. To verify the improvements you will need to have a properties file checked for its current use and characteristics. This information will usually tell us what is on the property, the square footage, and if there is a dwelling and where it is located on the property.

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