Customer Reviews

Profit by Investing in Real Estate Tax Liens: Earn Safe, Secured, and Fixed Returns Every Time

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book gives a great description of the procedural nuts and bolts of purchasing tax certificates, with a lot of emphasis on my own home state of Florida. Unfortunately I learned this week from attending a local auction that it is extremely difficult for the average investor to compete with the institutions in actually purchasing certificates, much less in obtaining anything greater than the absolute minimum available rate of return.

After reading this book, I attended the first day of my own county's auction with high hopes. Unfortunately I found that there were approximately 125 or so other persons attending it. In our State the maximum rate of interest is 18% and bids can go all the way down to 0.25%, with the statute providing that when redeemed, the purchaser is still paid at the rate of 5%. At our auction whenever a certificate was offered, at least half of the people present would immediately raise their buyer cards and shout out their willingness to accept the absolute minimum rate of 0.25%. Frankly I did not know how the auctioneer could legitimately determine which of the 50 or so people had actually bid first, but I did see that many of the certificates seemed to have been awarded to those sitting in the seats closest to the auctioneer.

After returning home in total disgust, I decided to review the day's results online. I discovered that in only the first hour, approximately 100 different buyers had been awarded certificates. One might assume that there had been a fair distribution of the available certificates among everyone who had been present. However, when reviewing the mailing addresses of these 100 different buyers, I discovered that about 70 of them shared only six or seven different mailing addresses. Each of the entities sharing those six or seven addresses had sent up to 15 individuals to bid on their behalf. You do the math and you can see that one lone individual has very little chance of even getting a certificate under such a scenario, not to mention ever getting a higher rate of return than the bare minimum. The proceeding that I attended hardly justified being called an "auction" and it certainly didn't seem fair.

Overall, the book is a good resource on the mechanics of tax liens/tax deeds, how they are auctioned off, and strategies for investing through liens/deeds. Loftis' descriptions of how to successfully bid on lien/deed auctions is a very useful resource, as is his descriptions of how to calculate rates of return.

However, the book has an overabundance of photos of Loftis at various auctions, photos of liens and deeds Loftis successfully bid on, and photos of houses with liens and deeds that Loftis successfully bid on. The section on how tax liens and deeds are better investments than stocks and bonds is way too "rah rah."

Although Loftis gives many good pointers about how to successfully bid on tax liens/deeds, the biggest problem is that banks and deep-pocketed investors already know the "secret" of tax lien/deed investing. If you go to an auction, you are likely to see a sizeable number of people all working for the same bank/investors' group. That makes it pretty tough for a small investor to effectively compete in those auctions.

This book is one of the best ones in explaining in everyday terms the concepts and principles behind tax liens and tax deeds. It's shortfall, however, is two-fold: 1) the large number of cheesy pictures; and 2) the fact that at most auctions, one investor is very likely to be outmatched and outbid by banks and professional investors groups.

Without question, this is the best book on both tax liens and tax deeds on the market. Two things are clear from this book. First, this stuff does work in most states of the country. I've been able to buy both liens (last year at rates of 15-17% in Florida) and deeds. By utilizing the techniques illustrated in the book, I was able to compete effectively against the so-called "institutional" investors. Mr. Loftis teaches how to invest in their "gaps", and how to go where they don't go. (On that note, I recently saw an article in the Wall Street Journal online Real Estate Journal that mentioned getting 24% in Iowa, 18% in D.C., and 16% in Arizona. They also mentioned a guy who was making a killing in tax deed foreclosures). Second, it's clear from this book that Loftis really knows his stuff and has tons of personal examples in his book (he's not just doing academic research or trying to coax you into going to an expensive seminar or "boot camp"). I've read a lot of real estate books and about half of them are really just ads for attending their seminars. Refreshingly, this book isn't an ad - it just teaches you how to do it. How nice.

I read this book twice over the weekend. It's great! I highly recommend it to everyone. Mr. Loftis did a great job of presenting his experiences at several auctions in different states. I did not take it as self-promotional fluff as one critic stated, but rather, as a way of showing the reader that he actually practices what he preaches.
He mentioned that in the larger metropolitan counties in Florida, banks such as Wachovia send college students with lots of money to bid-down the interest rate to a low 0.25%. He suggests that beginners attend tax sales in the smaller counties in order to acquire better tax liens.
Overall, the book covers the major points of tax lien investing in great detail and shows the reader how to calculate the yield under different scenarios.
AS a busy real estate broker, i don't have the time to write a review for books but given the quality of the information in this book, I felt compelled to do so. I bought a tax lien package worth almost $2000 and compared to this book, it's worthless.
I sent that package back and instead will keep this book as a reference.
Hope this review helps.

I've been a realtor for over a year and it amazes me how many realtors don't know about this or care. This one is the best book on the subject of Tax Liens to date that I have read. Read 16% Solution a while ago, not bad just outdated, but this book gives details. Even sat in on a few tax lien seminars, be very careful of these. If you are serious about getting good information and a good start without the bull on tax lien investing, put you money here. I did.

I started investing in tax auctions a couple of years ago and I bought this book as my first guide and it was certainly a good one. There are weaknesses on this book in terms of online tax lien sales though, seeing as a lot of counties are moving towards that way (Loftis prefers classic auctions versus online auctions). But I find them a lot easier, I don't have to be there in a hot room filled with 30 other people. And I can be 300 miles away doing it, not having to pay a plane ticket or gas.

Overall, it has the information you need to win in tax liens sales and also a bit of information on tax deeds. I also bought a more updated book below that has information on online auctions:

Complete Guide to Real Estate Tax Liens and Foreclosure Deeds: Learn in 7 Days-Investing Without Losing Series by Don Sausa

Oh and I forgot to mention, Loftis and Sausa are real tax lien investors. There are some books out there that I had to put down because they weren't even written by an investor!

What there is in this book is useful, but Mr. Loftis uses up too many pages with photos of all the liens and deeds he has bought. A lot of the advice is common sense--know what you are bidding on in a tax deed auction, for example. The information about individual states is perfunctory and at least for Missouri, excluded much information (such as: Saint Louis city conducts its own tax sales, separate from the county, and it sells tax deeds. St. Louis County also appears to sell both tax liens and deeds.).

Overall, a useful book, but really only about 40 useful pages.

This book is a very good resource for tax lien investing and covers some states very well. Because state laws are so different and always changing, it's not feasible to write a book that has current information for every state. This book accurately describes tax lien and tax deed investing procedures for most states. I found this book to be the most complete book in print about tax liens that I have found and it even has some information on deeds. I strongly suggest this book to anyone who want to get involved in investing in tax lien certificates or tax deeds.

I bought 3 tax lien books at a real estate bookshop/workshop and I would rate this tax lien book as #2 out of the three (see my other reviews on what else I bought). I think this book was a good introduction to tax liens but there's a few things that were in it that I didn't give it 5 full stars.

Good -
** The back reference materials is probably the most helpful out of this book, specifically the directory of states and their laws.

Bad -
** I don't really like the tell-all stories of the author's auction escapades...I want to read a how-to book, I really don't want to know the person you corrected because what he said was wrong when you overheard him. I don't really want to see pictures of you and your friends at the auction.

Conclusion
** Overall a 4 out of 5 stars, but please remove some of the autobiography stuff next time.

Other recommendations
The Beginner's Guide to Real Estate Tax Lien and Tax Deed Auctions ISBN 0978834607 - not on amazon, avail at other bookstores

I don't think many people know about this alternative to investing in the volatile stock market. I didn't. Mr. Loftis' book is written for those of us who need an introduction to this area of investing. However, he doesn't stop with the introduction. The book provides a step-by-step guide to investing in real estate tax liens. He also gives an "insiders" view of the investment process, including finding the right property and bidding at the auction. He uses his own experience to show you what you need to do, and what you should avoid. The book includes numerous real life examples, forms and documents. A great book (and highly recommended) for those interested in discovering a new way to invest.