California Tax Liens
Anyone have advice on finding property with tax liens in California. Particularly Los Angeles?
Is there a particular part of the state or local government that deals with this?
If so, are they as far behind in updating these lists as they are in most other areas of gov?
A book is available with a list of all tax defaulted propertys in La county. You can purchase it by phone at (213)974-2646 at a cost of $15.00 or go to Kenneth Hahn Hall at 225 N. Hill St. cashiers window on the first fl. Bidding starts 02/24/03 9 am You must registar on 01/28/03 Goodluck
How long does the auction last, and will they get to all properties listed in the book?
Is there a way to bid on properties not brought up at auction?
You may try http://ttax.co.la.ca.us/RemainingItems.asp
[addsig]
I have the site bookmarked, thanks.
I have found some great sites in the LA county system. I live in REdondo BEach, and they have all of their property information online. You can view maps, prices, tax information,etc. IT is a great resource.
Site states that it is mainly land vacant for 5 years and and structure is not guaranteed to be part of the sale?? Changes cannot be made for a year to bought property.
Has anyone found these to be good investments?
Quote from site: The County will conduct a public auction of tax-defaulted real property Feb. 24-25 at the County Arboretum in Arcadia. Bidders, who must register between Jan. 28 and Feb. 11, may purchase a list of available properties in book form or CD.
I went to the Los Angeles County Land Auction in Feb 2003 and I found that the prices/bids were outrageously expensive. I worked diligently for 2 months gathering information on the properties up for auction only to find that 99% of props with structures were not available at the time of the auction.
The Los Angeles Tax Lien Sale was almost 100% vacant land and the prices were high. Several bids over $50-100k and one bid even went over $330K!
The least expensive bid was around $9K but I had no interest in the land.
Hope this helps,
Michelle
PS I will be at the Riverside Auction this month (Mar 03) to see what they have to offer. I suspect it will be pretty much all vacant land as well by the time the auction rolls around as many props with structures have been redeemed.
This seems like a great board! I'm glad to join.
First of all, I used to live in California and it was there that I was educated on tax liens/deeds. I live in Europe now, even though I still invest in US tax liens (since we Europeans don't have such a great investment vehicle).
California does not have tax liens but they have tax deeds. When a property owner does not pay his or her tax bill, the tax bill gets auctioned off to the highest bidder. The tax deed itself, however remains with the tax collector and not the person who paid off the bill. This is one of the major differences in CA vs. other states. Once the property owner pays the tax collector his share with interest, the tax collector turns around and pays the person who paid the tax deed in the first place. If the property owner does not pay the tax bill, however, the State of CA turns around and auctions the property off to the highest bidder. The original person who paid for the tax deed simply gets paid off. In other States, such as Indiana, Tennesse, and some more, the tax lien holder becomes senior to even the mortgage, thus if the property owner does not pay the tax bill, the entire property turns over to the tax lien holder free and clear of any mortgage.
Be aware, there are only about 10 or so states where this is possible. Therefore it's really important that you really know where to invest. Also watch out for these programs that supposedly teach you how to get property for pennies on the dollar. If you get a lien for $200 and then find out that it's just a piece of land that used to be a gas station, oh, but the tanks are still in the ground, then you have not purchased a good piece of land and you are responsible for the clean-up.
All these manuals don't do you any good if you are investing in a state such as California. You really want to do your research well!
I'm a heavy tax lien investor, have been for a while. Being that I'm in Europe, I use a company based in the US. They also have free calls that you can get on as many times as you'd like, and ask just about any question there is about tax liens. I don't want to advertise the company I use since there is a research fee when investing with them. But I can tell you that Dynamic Investment Solutions (.com) is the company that holds the free tele-seminars. I've talked to them directly and there is no fee for their calls, newsletters, etc. Pretty good deal.
I hope I helped a little. Good luck!
Investor Diva
Investor Diva is right on. I live in the Bay Area and I only tried once to talk to the tax collector to find out about tax deed auctions. It wasn't very encouraging. CA is not a very profitable state to purchase tax deeds in, especially if you want the property.
Thankfully, Nevada is most likely changing to a tax lien state for the first time in history (coming in 2004). It will be nice for Californians to go "next door" and hopefully purchase nice liens there. There's talk about the interest rate being between 15 and 20%.
Sorry CA folks.
DEAREST DIVA
Can you tell me ...why the Banks REO prices are so close to Market Value when the forclosed buyer has been late to ninty days or up to six months which if a bank was to REO (like the tax deed) and Tax Lein Certificated SFR, ... are the costs that high to put the list back on the rolls as the Comptroller starts looking sidways at some banks for holding too many REOS and order a consolidation...
What I am trying to ask what research can you do in the same way as the tax deeded property as the REO to make it a real value so the bank will have to be forced to come down on the price ...any inside information...? maybe if I leave this message to the TCI it would be answered be a banker that can give us all some light on the subject...?
Can you tell us how to go about it from the get go...?
POST IT TO THE NEWBIE...?
God Bless
Shayshay