In the Detroit area, a record tax auction in October 2010 sold 4,300 properties and got those properties off the books and helped the city recoup staggering losses causes by the non-payment of property taxes. Sound like a success? Absolutely not, says Maggie DeSantis, president of a local non-profit development corporation. “[We’ve] got to make it so onerous to speculate [in property],” she explains, “and we have to do it now”[1]. DeSantis and others like the mayor of Detroit, Dave Bing, who believe that “shrinking” the area of Detroit is …

In Arizona, small business owners and homeowners alike are “buying time” on their property taxes by simply opting out of paying, reports Coconino County Treasurer Bonny Lynn[1]. In this Arizona county, the number of tax liens for sale this January is fully double the number just three years ago in 2007 before the worst of the bust hit the state. Lynn believes that this is just another product of the state’s struggling economy, but Dharmesh Vora, president of the Vora Financial Group in Coconino, believes that many businesses and homeowners …

Tax lien investors know that the holder of a mortgage on a tax-lien compromised property can be a friend or a foe. If you are hoping to have your lien redeemed, then a mortgage holder is a friend. After all, they would probably rather pay off your tax lien – with interest and penalties of course – to avoid losing their larger investment in the property. On the other hand, if you are hoping to foreclose on the property, a lender holding a large mortgage can be bad news since …

All over the country, homeowners and their municipalities are discovering that they are going to have to find a way to work together on utility bills. In many areas of the country, local governments are reporting that delinquent accounts have tripled as homeowners struggle to make payments or simply inform the country that the bills cannot – and will not – be paid[1]. This creates serious problems for city governments, which are responsible for schooling and public safety, among other things, and often rely on the current year’s tax dollars …

When properties go to auction to redeem unpaid property taxes, investors have the opportunity to get real bargains on those properties by purchasing unpaid liens. In Detroit, Michigan, however, the delinquent homeowners cashed in on those bargains instead with the help of a nonprofit coalition that purchased $194,000 worth of liens and “saved” 150 homes from the block[1]. The homes were purchased at the tax auction, “in most cases for a fraction of what they owed in back taxes,” thanks to Ted Phillips and his United Community Housing Coalition.
The coalition …

Purchasing a property via tax deed is a great way to get involved in real estate investing. Unfortunately for a homeowner in New York that has been fighting for his home for almost seven years now, a tax lien paved the way for a Long Island woman to forge his name, take possession of the property and then sell it multiple times to other investors[1]. Garfield Gillings let his tax and water bills slide on his Brooklyn house back in 2003. When he contacted the collection agency that he believed …

In Closter, New Jersey, the small town was set to auction off a local mall at a tax lien auction in an effort to “recoup hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes from…owners.” And investors were at the ready, eager to bid on the commercial property. Now, however, the entire process is stalled thanks to a last-minute bankruptcy filing by the property’s owners which effectively prevented the sale from moving forward[1].
In this case, bidders were lucky. The bankruptcy filing happened before the sale rather than immediately after. When the …