When it comes to tax lien investing, as soon as you get the when and the details of the terms for a tax lien certificate or deed auction, you will want to take the list of unsold tax liens (or deeds) and begin investigating the parcels that they represent. Do not be concerned if you get with a list with several thousand properties, this will be a very nice problem to have as you will pretty much have a guaranteed tax lien to buy somewhere in that list, because after you get the hang of reading the details then skimming the list will become similar to skimming through real estate advertisements. This similarity will make tax lien investing much simpler.

The next thing to do, once you are fortunate enough to find one of these tax lien investing golden lists, is to divide it into little pieces and take it a step at a time. Understand that you do not even need to examine every single item on the list. You just need to uncover the few properties needed to cover the money you have for investing in tax liens. Honestly, this will most likely not even get you 10, then bidders would bid 9, 7. That is a pretty minuscule ROI and much less than desirable. Such a minuscule ROI makes tax lien investing appear to be a horrible idea.

So then what happens is that when the redemption occurs, the debtor pays the full interest rate, but the certificate owner only earns the bid percentage while the state gets the rest. Still not a worthy investment in my mind.

Occasionally a state will auction off 'ownership' of a property that the tax lien is against. Assume that a tax lien certificate is worth $1000, then it can't be auctioned for more than that price. Now, bidders bid on how much of the real property they will own if there is a foreclosure. The lowest bidder will become the tax lien certificate holder.

What this means is, someone has a winning bid of 1 of the auction value of the property. Let's say a property sells for $100k and you bought a $1000 certificate on the property that you bid 1 rate, then certificate will be worth 1150 once paid off. Yet, since you paid 1100, you only net $50. So your true ROI is 50/1100 = 4.5% I am sure you can see how this system can quickly bid you right out of your cash and quickly into a loss if you are not cautious with the numbers when tax lien investing using this bidding structure.

Knowing these bidding structures is VERY critical to making sure you are getting the return on your capital that you are trying to get. It is very possible that bidding and winning a tax lien certificate could net you much less than wanted if you partake in an auction you do not fully understand. This should be apparent from some of the above examples.

I think you should attend a couple auctions before you actually take part in tax lien investing. You will getfamiliarity and confidence in the systems.

Lastly, if done correctly, you can invest in tax liens with a rather minuscule amount. A tiny amount equals a few hundred dollars. Tax lien investing does not take a large amount of cash to begin investing. What is required is a little education (these articles should be plenty) and a little experience. The experience is up to you.

Good luck in your future tax lien investing endeavors!