Author: United Tax Liens

Eric, we live in a digital age. There's so much information out there. How do I get information that's going to help me as a real estate investor?

Alright, so I'm going to take us out of the digital age for a second, OK? Remember when we had to take notes back in class? Those of you who had to sharpen your pencils and stuff like that, I know I'm dating myself. But, I want you to grab your pen, pencil, notepad. Get ready to type some information in here. Because I'm going to share with you some resources that I commonly use that we encourage our students to use to make the best decisions possible when it comes to real estate and tax liens. Let's talk about what some of those tools are and why we would want to use them. So one of the first ones would be your real estate software. Make sure you're taking full advantage of how to use that, make sure you understand how to use it, and make sure you take full advantage of the education that comes along with that opportunity as well. 

Now, some other things that will help us out tremendously in finding real estate deals, in evaluating them: realtor.com. 

You can get great information, and you can do mapping by it, you can find out what's available for sale, you can get some sole data, you can even reach out to agents that way. 

So realtor.com is a great place to go. Zillow is as well. Just as a quick introduction, Zillow doesn't like realtors and Zillow doesn't like a realtor. So they're going to give you different points of information. Zillow will be more based on where the county recorder information comes from, a realtor will be based more on the sales on the MLS. Which ones better? They are both excellent. Wherever you get the best data to help make the right decisions is excellent. 

They've also got sites like redfin. One of the other sites I like is called trulia.com. I like it because it includes the crime statistics of that property and the surrounding properties. How great is that to know? Because you know exactly what you're getting into as a tool. When you're evaluating properties, you definitely want to have a great cash flow analysis: an income and an expense form. If you don't have one, make sure you go through, and you grab those from our site. So that you can have that as part of the tools so you can do those evaluations quickly. Maybe you could even have your agent do those evaluations and save you time so that they can bring you things that way. And that information and assessment is already done. 

What about other tools, what are your favorites?

Looking at another tool that I enjoy using, it's called bestplaces.net. At bestplaces, you can type in any city in the US, and it will give you an overview of that city. It will provide you with, average age. Population. Is it on the incline or the decline? It will give you job growth; it will give you the unemployment rate. Bestplaces.net excellent tool; use it. It will give you more confidence in understanding what's happening out there. Let's talk about some specifics when it comes to tax lien investing some tools that will help out. 

One of the tools that I like to use, this applies to both, it's called neteronline.com. What it is, it's every county's website. It gives you the assessor. It gives you the tax collector. It gives you the recorder's office; if you have a GIS, all of that is there. All you do is click on the state and then the county, and it will give you all of that information. It's an excellent tool to have when you're validating information that way. 

Now when you're investing in tax liens, you want to make sure you're very clear in understanding how to use the lien hub. You can use lien hub; it's a free access point, they contract with counties to provide a porthole to purchase over-the-counter liens, and they can actually help you with the auction process as well. Another resource on your tax lien side is bid for assets. Bid4assets.com

Another one that helps out across different states is called realauction.com 

Now there are so many more sites, and so many more resources that you want available. But you want to build your own template when it comes to real estate investing. What are your required parameters for a fix and flip? What are your required parameters for a rental property? Build a system. Make sure you can track your portfolios. Whether you're tracking your tax lien purchases or tracking your real estate investment, keep them organized. Make sure you have a team in place to help you continue to move forward. 

You've done an excellent job choosing to be a part of our team, as we move forward, and so make sure you get the most out of your investment by building this process and increasing the tools that you have. The more tools you have, the more successful you will be. Now don't forget, you've got the opportunity to go on increasing your funding. You could always go to the Scotsman guide. And there are so many different places you could go on funding to be able to enhance your success opportunities. Now always be looking for new tools. The beauty of the information age is simply this; there's something new every day. So add to it. If you've got additional sites that you love to use, you use those sites. But the main thing is that you're using it.

The main thing is that you're taking massive action. And the main thing is that you're planning to use the tools and that you're doing something about it. And so be in that place to where you are moving forward towards your goals, where you are taking action, to where you're making offers, you're making offers, you're making purchases on your tax lien, you're getting the returns and you're seeing the results. So with that, those are the tools that will make a foundational difference for you, and keep moving forward towards your real estate and tax lien objectives. 

You got this. 

Eric, let's talk about research that I need to do on tax liens and tax deeds. I don't want to make mistakes. Is there anything I should be looking out for? 

You bet, let's talk about the things that you want to be aware of first on your to-do list. So the first thing is figuring out: what type of investor are you? Are you an active investor or a passive investor when it comes to your tax lien investing. Remember, passive investors purchase and wait. Active investors purchase and file TDA's because they want the liens; they want the deeds. Once you've determined that, there are some very important numbers that you can go by on your research every time to make the right choices based on the right decisions you want to have happened. One of the most important things is you want to know the year on that tax lien. And that's basically going to go ahead and tell you a story. 

Can you tell us a little about redemption periods?

How soon is the redemption period going to be complete? How long is the lifetime of that certificate? And when do you need to file your TDA? So that's going to tell you a lot of information. You also want to know the interest rate. Especially if you're a passive investor, you want to know how much return you will get off it. 

Even if you're an active investor and you file a TDA right now, it won't matter. You'll go to 18%, and that's how it will work. So you want to understand what the delinquency was of the face value of taxes that were owed. The reason why that's the case is that's where the interest comes from. Let's say it's an 18% tax lien on $1,000. That's what the interest is moving forward every year. It’s 18% on $1,000. So it's going to be $180 every year. Now some states are not compounding interest; some states are. Just be aware of that. Interest is definitely important. So we've got our face value, we understand what the face value is. Redemptive value is what we pay for that tax lien. Based on the face amount, plus interest to the day we purchase it. OK. So we want to understand what that is. 

And then the rollup is: it's a total of all the property tax liens against the property rolled up into one. And we pay that amount, and then we file our TDA. When we pay that rollup, remember we get 18% on that entire amount, and then we go ahead and file our TDA to move forward. Now the last thing we want to go ahead and know is our assessed value. And the reason why is that it will tell us what the county thinks our property is worth and let me cover these things again really quickly. 

So this is our research. We want the year. We want the interest rate. We want the face value. We want the redemptive value. We want the rollup, and we want the assessed value. Those are vital for us to know in making the best decisions possible. Now you also want to be in a place where you choose the appropriate state for you. Whether it's an administrative state or a judicial state, or maybe you just want to invest in tax liens that are closer to home. Or deeds that are closer to home. Learn how that process works. Now, if you're going to invest in tax liens, I would recommend you choose three counties. 

Can you give us an example of a specific state, like Florida?

If you're going to go to Florida, choose three counties that you're going to work with and get bitter numbers on those and have those be the initial counties that you work with before you go after every single county that's out there. Now another thing that you want to do on your tax liens, once you've figured out that initial — the year, the interest rate, you want to get a viewpoint of where this property is located. Because if you end up picking it up, is that going to be of value to you. Can you sell it and make money on it if you end up picking it up. So a couple of things you do want to be aware of. Is that property landlocked, which means it doesn't have any street access, right? 

You can deal with that, and there are ways to deal with it, but it's timely, and it costs money. Another thing is the property could be underwater. Another thing is the property could be undeveloped. And so is it essential to have streets and utilities. And so, when you do the research, you want to validate the market value. And when we talk about tools in a minute, I will talk about different ways to validate the value. But one of the best ways to do that, I've found both realtor.org and Zillow provide a huge vacant lot or residential, where you can see the sole comparables of that given property and the surrounding ones. 

And the ones that have sold, the dates, how quickly they took to sell, and that way you can go into that tax lien purchase with confidence knowing, hey if I have to file a TDA, I'm confident because I know if I get it I'll be able to sell it. I also know what it will sell for. So then you can move forward with your investing ROI strategy, and that's going to make a huge difference not only toward your portfolio, but to your confidence as you move towards your goals. 

Eric, let's talk about market research. Where am I going to invest, what neighborhoods, how does that all fit? 

Oh, you're talking about the analytics dream and nightmare at the same time, right. Because some of us who like information and data can get way too hung up on it. But when used the right way, you can understand the best marketplaces throughout the country and even in your own different neighborhoods. Let's talk about the big picture first; if you really want to get a handle on what's happening with the economy nationwide, one of the best resources that I would recommend is realtor.org. And they actually have these quarterly reports that show information, job growth, what sectors are growing, what's declining. Make sure you go into their presentation slides; you're going to get so much excellent data. It will help you make decisions if you're looking to invest in different parts of the country. 

Also, you can use your real estate software to figure out what the best resources are that way. You can look at it as a whole and say everything is across the economy. What you can also look at in the big picture is interest rates. Because whether interest rates are super low means lending will be a little easier, which means that individuals can typically afford more, all of those things that kind of drive the economy. So that's a big picture. Now when we're in a place where we are looking at our local market, we need to get a little bit more defined. What are some of those things we think about? 

What is the most important thing that we want to know when we're in a specific area? Well, I want to see if it's on the incline, if it's stagnant, or if it's on the decline. I want to be prepared for that in knowing what's happening. 

Can you explain this process a little further?

There's an easy way you can tell that too; you can take that certain area and tell how many properties are listed active for sale, how many are under contract, and how many have sold in the last month. I'll give you a quick example. Let's say you have two properties that are active in that area. Let's say you have 17 properties that are under contract in that area. You have 42 properties that are sold. In your mind, where do you go? It's like that's a hopping area; I can price it for whatever it's going to sell. 

What if we change it up? What if we have 32 properties active, two properties under contract, five properties sold. Well, that's telling you it's on the decline, or you have to be super competitive with how I did it or how I fix it up. So you have to know what's happening. Incline, is it stagnant, is it going down? Stay on top of it. One of those indicators also is called dom. If you don't know what DOM is, it's: days on the market. It means how many days was the property actually active until it went under contract. And so the shorter the days on the market, it means things are moving really quickly, right. And that means it's going to be a shorter time if you're doing a flip, to where as soon as you get that ready where it's going to turn quickly. So days on market are definitely important. Now see what the inventory is like, is there an inventory shortage, is there too many on the marketplace. But here are some unique things that you want to pay attention to. In an area that I went in, two major factors came into play regarding how the local economy and the local jobs affect property values. 

What can you say about the role of big business in infrastructure and real estate investing? 

Recently, a small company named Facebook decided they would go ahead and invest in a 5 million square foot warehouse facility, not too far away from one of the properties that I hold. Now with that being the case, what does that kind of tell you? You have a large company that's investing infrastructure into an area. The natural consequence is there will be more jobs; there will be more commerce, there's going to be more things that are taking place. So you got more of a buzz. What happens when an Amazon hub opens up, which it also did in this area. What that does is that it creates jobs, like energy, people moving in and around closer to that distribution center. So look and see what's happening with the local economy as well. 

Understand what's going on in that market. How are the jobs, how is the city, how's that neighborhood, understand those things and that's going to put you in a super desirable neighborhood. Look at the school districts, look at the schools and see what's happening that way. Find out where the desirable locations are, use that. Check out your days on market, because all of those are factors that are going to help you make the right decision on your investment because you're going to understand the marketplace. Use your real estate tools, too. Have your agent pull up comps for you. In fact, you're going to be able to pull up comps with your real estate software. So you may as well do that and stay on top of what's taking place. Because the more you understand your marketplace, the more confidence you will have when making your offers. And the more authentic you'll be, and the more deals you'll do. 

Another lending term I hear all the time is GAP lending. Eric, tell me about the gap. What's gap lending? 

I'm going to tell you about GAP, but I'm going to tell you a story first. Use your imagination and go with me on this story. Just humor me for a second. So let's imagine all of us, we became general contractors. So we went out, we got our education, our license. We went out, bought our big truck, and a big trailer. And we got our first contract. And this contract is on a high-end house, at the end of the day, our fee will be a couple hundred thousand dollars. We are so excited about this. And then we walk back over to our trailer; we open up the door, get our toolbelt on, and guess what we only have one tool in our tool belt. Which is a Phillips screwdriver. And the expectation is for us to do this entire gut and remodel job with one tool. 

Now I can imagine many of you are like: are you serious, Eric? Are you actually bringing this forward to draw this point? Yeah, I am! Because far too many real estate investors think if they have one lending option available to them, that's all they need. And that's incredibly not smart. 

In that case, what would make a successful contractor?

Think about a successful contractor; what do they have? It's like saws, right, hammers, nail guns, mallets, how many drills. Go through all the things that a successful contractor needs. And to be a successful real estate investor, you need as many different lending options. And that's where gap lending comes into place. Because you may need a certain amount of funds not only to close a deal, but you might need the interim funds. Maybe you need a hard money loan here, and maybe you need to get a gap loan over here. To be able to put permanent financing that you're going to keep as a rental. And then so you need one resource to go to another one. You want to have as many tools available to you as possible.

And so a gap lender could simply be, maybe it's a private lender. And this is somebody you meet at a real estate investment club. Maybe this is Aunt June or Uncle Bobby. 

The great thing about real estate is, I always thought I knew who had money. And I was wrong, OK. I would take it by outward appearances, but that's not reality. What you do is you be in that place to where you ask. Remember, you're adding more tools to your toolbelt when it comes to funding. And so ask the question: have you ever thought about being the bank in a real estate deal?

Tell us more about what it takes to become your own bank in a real estate deal. 

Go get a commercial lender; go get a line of credit. Good heavens, you're setting up your entity or LLC, establish some corporate credit for your entity. Or go ahead and create lines of credit even in your personal name, on your property. Or other properties. You could even use one property for collateral on another property. It's like where is the gap in the deal. What is missing to be able to complete that deal? And be creative on how you solve it. At the beginning of this, I shared with you the first deal that I did. Where was the gap? 

What happened was, I got a 60% loan from a bank, and there was a 40% gap. Where did I get the rest of the money? Well, I went to the seller. And I had the seller finance the other 40%. That was the gap that I needed to close the deal. Whenever you're looking for that creative, or to complete the deal, use your creativity, because it could be any one of those different funding strategies, that could be the gap that allows you to be successful with real estate. 

So here's the thing, close the gap! Alright? Have fun with it. 

Eric, everyone is worried about retirement, and so we have these IRA's out there. What's a self-directed IRA? 

Oh, that's a good question! Now I like stories way too much. So I'm going to share with you an example first. I personally believe they are one of the best-kept secrets in funding your real estate or your tax lien strategies. So first off, for this story. I often will ask investors–to understand where they are. I will ask them about their cash situation, their financing situation, what tools they have available to them now. To see where they are so we can see the right days and get their toolbelt full of their funding, right?

And so often, investors will come back to me, and they'll say, hey Eric, I don't have any cash. I don't have any funding options, but I do have 600,000 in my IRA. And I'm like, huh, OK. So you look at that, that's a tool that can be leveraged, right? And I think most individuals think, if I've got 600,000 in an IRA, well, if I access that, what's going to happen.

What are the drawbacks of a self-directed IRA? 

There's going to be penalties, taxes will be crazy, and all those other things. Now initially, you should have had the opportunity to be introduced to a self-directed IRA or what that looks like. If you haven't been, I will encourage you to look into it because it is super valuable. What it allows you to do is to be able to access your funds, and you actually take control over how those funds are used. 

Now here's the thing I will give this disclaimer. Make sure you have your proper legal and tax advice on this. But I'm just sharing with you information on why so many individuals use the self-directed IRA. And so with that, what they'll do is they will take those monies and put them in a self-directed IRA, and all of a sudden, you're not in a place where you had to pay all those fees and taxes like you would be if you withdrew it. And so you can actually grow depending on if you have a traditional or a Roth IRA, and you'll want to talk through as you do while investigating how that applies to you. But what happens is you can use that money for investing. You could use that money to lend to other investors. You could actually be the lender to other investors.

Any other potential restrictions to know about?

Now there are some restrictions on that with family members and what you could actually have that be a part of your investing strategy. You could also use it for rental properties. There are many different forms that you could use your self-directed IRA for. And if you haven't looked into it, I would strongly urge you to check it out this week, self-directed IRA's. Check into it, add that to your toolbelt as an incredible tool when it comes to your funding options. 

As real estate investors, we hear about hard money all the time. Eric, what's hard money and how do I use it? 

Hard money, wow. Hard money to me is hard for me because it's typically going to be a higher interest rate. It's hard for me because it's going to cost me more in points and fees. That's going to cut into my profitability. That's why it's hard for me. But it's a tool to use. Just because I say it's hard for me, I want you to be profitable as well. Know that it's a tool, just like any of the other financing tools. You want to learn how to use it effectively. 

Now, I know individuals who only use hard money and they are entirely successful. They make it work for them. And that's their strategy. But let's understand what hard money is first. 

A hard money lender is either a group or an individual; they have their own individual lending criteria. They may have a specific LTV that they loan against. LTV means low to value btw. Maybe they will go to 80% or 90%, or some hard money lenders will even go to 200% of the value, including your fix-up cost. That could be a really cool thing. 

Now there's a couple of things you want to watch out for in any loan. What is the interest rate? How important is the interest rate, if we're getting a 6% interest, or a 10% interest. On a three month loan. It may not be massively important, but where it may come into play is, what are the fees we are getting charged? What are the points, what are the appraisals, and what is the underwriting? What does all that look like? 

Is hard money a fast or slow option for funding deals?

Hard money means you've got access to funds. Usually, it's meant to be a quicker process and a faster scenario. And one of the places that I like to go to as far as a tool that you may want to check out as well. I've used it for years as a lender and it's called Scotsman guide. Scotsmanguide.com you can check it out. They do have it setup by hard money lenders by state. You can check that out. It's a great resource. 

Now hard money lending, let's dig a little deeper into it with regards to rate of return. With anything, first look to get the lowest cost loan, but you also want to make sure that you have: if you've setup a track record often with a hard money lender, they will say OK, on the first deal, we'll charge you two points and the loan will be at 10%. We'll charge you one point on the second deal, which is one percentage point of the actual loan amount, and maybe they will say 8% interest rate. Now that means they are telling you that they are flexible out of the gate. 

Does that mean you as an investor can negotiate with any lender at any time, to get a better interest rate or negotiate on the points and fees? You bet it does. And you better be asking them to reduce those costs and those fees to be able to go ahead and maximize your return. So pay close attention to that. Just like getting the best rate that you can in real estate when you purchase, you also want to get the best deal you can when you're negotiating how the funding goes. And that will make a big difference to you as you move forward with hard money. So again, hard money, don't shy away from it. 

Can you sum up for us the benefits and drawbacks of hard money lending?

So you might say Eric, that seemed kind of bad with your initial approach. Ooo, it's hard. No, hard money is just different. It's not good or bad; it just depends on how you use it. And is there a better tool that you could use. But I would definitely recommend hard money as one of your funding sources moving forward. So get more educated about it, get a couple of hard money lenders in your back pocket so that you're ready to move on deals. That way you know what to expect so when you're running your numbers that way you can actually determine your profitability, including your lending cost. That's when the funding part will be fun for you. It really will turn into a positive thing. Hard money, excellent way to fund deals, excellent opportunity. Add it to your toolbelt. 

Eric, let's talk about funding now. We can get some big numbers fairly quickly. 

Now I have to tell you, I actually look at funding now, as fun. Because it's challenging, you can be creative, come up with a solution, and do the deal. And reach your goals, and have it be awesome. But I'll tell you initially, when I started, it meant fear to me. And it terrified me. Because I'm like, where is the money going to come from? You may feel that way right now too. And I have to tell you, if you follow the process, you're going to be in a place where the funding will work for you. It's just a part of the process. Don't let it overwhelm you. When different ideas are brought up, try it. 

What kind of mindset should the newcomer have when they start to understand the process of funding their own deals? 

Remember when I talked about mindset initially? And you may say, oh that won't work! Or, I don't know anybody with money. Or this won't happen. Well, you're already putting that barrier up to hold you back from success. And so when we bring up different topics to talk about funding today, I want you to really look at it with an open mind and say: how can I apply this? And try it. And you may really actually like the process. 

As we mentioned in our early videos, we talked about funding as one of the main ways to maximize your income. If you can key in and focus on those low-interest rate, low-cost loans to help you maximize your returns, you're going to be sitting in a great place. So again, take the funding, and let's add the fun into it. Let's get rid of the fear part.

OK so with that out of the way, what are the best or most common ways to fund deals? 

Just think openly, and you can have a conversation with me. What do you think is going on? What ways can we fund deals? Now we've talked about wholesale buyers—that's actually a way to fund a deal, by the way. Did you ever think of that? So we could fund a deal with our own cash. You may not want to, but you could easily do that. What if you did something like a home equity line of credit? If you've got low-cost interest you could use, why not? Depending on what kind of return you're going to get. Now there's a lot of different variations on how you can use partners. 

You can do a joint venture, you could bring them on as a certain percent partner. It could be a debt partner or an equity partner, it just depends on what you decide. You may cross over into this world called private lenders. I think a lot of folks are scared of that, because that's your network. And that's just simply asking people around you, hey have you ever thought about being the bank in a real estate deal. And you'd be surprised at what happens when you do that. You have conventional lenders: you could go to a commercial lender, right? So are you getting the picture? There's a lot of different ways you could fund deals. You could use options to fund deals, good heavens, you could even go to the seller, and the seller could fund the deal. 

What about seller refinancing? 

Now, if you've ever heard of the actual funding way of purchasing a property, called subject two, that's a form of seller financing. You can definitely do that. We can do hard money, and we're going to get into a little more depth on specifically what hard money is and how to use it effectively. 

There's also gap lending, which is either a portion of the actual purchase or maybe it's: you're using some equity from one property to get into another property, but we'll talk more about the details on that here in a moment. 

We'll even spend a little bit of time talking about self-directed IRAs. Now the great thing about this, remember I'm not just talking about investing in real estate, like the fix and flip. I'm also talking about investing in tax liens, tax deeds. That's also real estate. The information that we shared with you can be applied in both areas, and so as part of your effective strategy as a real estate investor, you must have funding as one of your key methods of success.

What are the three most important things to focus on in this process?

Now I'm going to introduce one more thing to you before we talk about hard money. You're going to want to focus on three things to have a successful real estate business. You have to have consistent finding, finding the deals, you have to have consistently have your funding efforts and your funding ready to go, and you must be able to make your offers. As long as you're focusing on those three areas, your business will continue to move forward. 

We really need to understand each funding type to have genuine success in real estate. 

Eric, let me ask you a couple of questions about tax liens, and so as I'm looking at that, how long is the process? When do I start making money? 

OK, so on a tax lien, remember the term that new language we were talking about called redemption, and that's when you get paid. You could initially go in right away and know if you pick up that tax lien or that tax lien certificate; what happens if you could have an owner. You're kind of waiting. 

You know there are two approaches that you can take. One is more of a passive approach, and then one is more of an active approach. And the passive approach is to buy that tax lien and wait. Either wait for the owner to redeem it, or you wait for another investor to come to pay us off as it goes through—but you're kind of waiting on someone else to take action. 

Now, if you were more on the active side as an investor, and your tax lien has passed that two year redemptive period in the state of Florida, you can actually file the TDA and be more aggressive and get 18% on your money during that window when you file the TDA until it is sold at the tax deed auction. And so you can influence when you get paid, or you can invest and be more passive. 

So it just depends on what you want as part of your investing strategy. 

And so I buy that tax lien, and the owner pays it in 6 months. Am I happy? 

That's why you want to pay attention to the interest rate that you're picking these up on. They can be different interest rates. What happens is that the tax lien's initial offer is offered beginning at 18% and then through the bidding process, they actually bid down the interest rate. 

And so, let's say your bidding against others, and let's say it goes to 12% and you become the owner of the tax lien at 12% well, you're going to get 12% interest during that six months until the owner pays you. And if you're satisfied with that 12%, btw that's a whole lot more than your getting in your savings account, wouldn't you agree? I mean really, 12% is a great return. And so that's how that process is figured out and that's one of the ways you get paid on tax liens. 

So one of the reasons we love tax liens is you got that interest rate, and you're like, wow, that's good, and if it can roll into me doing something and getting that property in a tax deed sale, then that's fantastic. 

You have to love that because it takes it from good to fantastic. It's like good to even better, right. And so yes, you can get paid, and there's nothing wrong with a 12%. But if you want to be more aggressive, that's when you can file more of those tax deed applications. The unique thing is when you file that tax deed application, you're automatically going to go to 18% so that the entire amount that you've paid of those back taxes will be collecting 18% from the day you file it. 

And so what happens is until that property is sold at auction, you're going to collect 18% on that. Now maybe you're happy with that and that works, or even better, you could potentially pick up the property if no one invests in it and the tax deed auction. 

Let's suppose I buy this tax lien. Can I go knock on the door and talk to the owner? 

No. In all of the resources and tools that we talk about later, that's a big no. I will say it again, no. 

So don't go knocking on that door and cut a deal directly? 

No! 

And owning that tax certificate is the line; before it goes on sale, I can knock on the door and talk to the person and say, hey I'm wondering about your property? 

Yeah and see if that might want to sell. Maybe they might be a flexible seller. They may have some challenges. But up until you cross over and own that certificate, no. 

Excellent, and so if I want to be a real active investor and jump right in, then I'm looking at tax deed sales cuz then I get ownership right away.

Immediately.

And so that's the beauty of tax certificates. I can get in for a relatively low-value amount, and boom, I've got upside. Tax deeds, OK, I'm ready to either flip this house or do something with it. 

Right, and find out what fits your personality and your strategy. You may do all three approaches. You might purchase it and wait.