How To Buy Tax Lien Certificates For Profit

Buying tax lien certificates can be a very profitable way to invest in real estate and with the right knowledge can provide very healthy returns on your money. But it's not to be treated as a "get-rich-quick" scheme, as the in-experienced can find it soon becomes a "lose-your-shirt-quick" investment model. By way of a brief introduction, a tax lien is basically a means that guarantees that a business or individual that lends money or provides a service will be repaid for that investment, by securing a lien on the property of the person receiving the money or services.

The tax lien is secured on the personal property or real estate owned by the debtor - the most common form is the mortgage lien. There are several other types of tax liens but we'll leave those for another line of discussion. Each variation of lien carries its own set of rules on how it is implemented, and each may also vary from state to state.

When the debtor is unable to pay their property taxes, the state issues a tax lien certificate against their property which also includes a time line by which the taxes must be repaid. This grants the lien owner access to the equity within the property in order to claim the money they are owed. If the property owner is then unable to repay the tax lien, it may be sold or auctioned off to the highest bidder.

When you buy a tax liened property you need to be aware that you are not actually buying the property itself. What you are doing in effect is lending the property owner the money they need to pay back their tax arrears. The property owner is also agreeing to repay that loan, with an agreed amount of interest, within the already determined repayment period that was established when the tax lien certificate was sold.

So here's how we make our profits. If the property owner is able to repay the value of the tax lien certificate back to you within the allotted schedule, including all interest owed to you, he retains ownership of the property, and his credit rating remains intact.

In the event where the property owner is not able to repay the tax lien back to you, in full, ownership of the property is transferred to you as the purchaser of the tax lien certificate. The property is now yours for you to do with as you wish.

So as a quick recap, s an owner of a tax lien certificate, you will either make a profit by way of the interest repaid on your loan to the property owner, or of the owner is unable to make the repayment, you take ownership of the property and make your profit from how you then manage that property.

The bottom line is that investing in tax lien certificates is relatively safe (providing you understand in detail how the process works, and where any potential risks lie), and is a profit focused way to invest in real estate.

About the Author

Author and realtor Mike Fairweather explains how to invest in real estate without losing your shirt. Buying tax lien certificates can be a lucrative road to building a real estate portfolio. Tax Lien Properties Don't reprint this exact article. Instead, reprint a free unique content version of this same article.

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