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 …

January 2-7, 2011
Major Commercial Developer Sees Commercial Real Estate Indicators as “100 Percent Positive”
Jan. 03, 2011 – CB Richard Ellis chief executive Brett White considers 2011 commercial real estate indicators to be “100 percent positive,” he told the Washington Post[1]. “There is no question that we are in the early days of a recovery phase,” he said, adding that investors’ sentiments are “strongly positive” and that businesses are looking years (instead of only months) into the future. White added that “vacancies have clearly peaked in almost every market and every …