Tax Lien Investing in 2008

The year is winding down and the holiday season is upon us. We will soon ring in a new year and a new leader of our country. There have been a lot of changes this year in the real estate and banking industry, and you might be wondering how this has impacted tax lien investing. So what’s been going on around the country in tax lien investing over the past year?

I have just finished my tax lien purchasing for the year. I only went to a handful of tax sales this year, but I’ve been able to acquire a few new liens. This is what I’ve found in the industry this year and what I’ve heard from subscribers to my TaxLienLady.com web site from around the country.

In the last half of this past year I’ve seen that there are more liens available at the tax sale. It seems that fewer liens are getting paid off before the tax sale. Not only are there more liens available, but there also seems to be liens left over, even in places that did not have left over liens in the past couple of years. Though many of the leftover liens are for worthless properties, some good properties have been leftover as well. This is a change from the past couple of years where not much at all was leftover and all of the properties that were left were junk properties.

Here are the reasons that I think this is happening and why now is a really good time to get involved in tax lien investing. First and most obvious is that we are in a recession and money is tight. People have stopped paying taxes on properties that they’ve been holding onto, thinking that someday in the future they’re going to do something with it. Secondly, loans are harder to get and it’s easier for a property owner to let their property sell at a tax sale and pay the interest on the lien than it is for them to get a loan and pay of the taxes right now. Thirdly, there are not as many investors at the tax sales.

Some investors may have dropped out of the arena because they got tired of the fierce competition that has been going on at tax sales in the last few years. Others may have lost money in other investments – like the stock market, or they may have real estate investments that they are loosing money on right now, and they don’t have the money to put into tax liens. All this means is that there is more available and with less competition.

Now is really a great time to get involved in tax lien investing. I don’t know how long this window of opportunity is going to last. If interest rates remain low, or drop even lower, than tax lien investing will attract more investors. If the economy gets better than there will be less liens available again. My advice is to get involved now while your chances of getting a good rate on tax liens are high. To find out more about the basics of tax lien investing go to TaxLienInvestingBasics.com. If you’d like to find out more about tax liens, you can watch a free video on “An Introduction to Tax Lien Investing” at
TaxLienIntro.