The internet offers wonderful opportunities to participate in tax sales without having to leave home.
1. The number of internet sales is increasing every year. There are between 300 and 400 sales that are now on the internet and they tend to be the larger sales. For example, Cook County, Illinois is now an internet sale - this is a sale that used to take as long as 40 days to do as a sale you attended in person.
2. Some of the states that now have at least some internet sales include: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Florida, and Maryland. I am sure we will see a number of new sales and states being added to this list over the next year.
3. Most of the internet sales require you to register some time (one to three weeks) before you can enter bids for the sale. You are usually required to deposit a nominal amount of funds prior to the sale and payment is usually required within one to three weeks after the sale.
You also have the capability to do some, if not all, of your due diligence on the internet. The increase in internet tools for this task has been dramatic over the past two years. We have put links to a number of very good sources at the bottom of this page, but some of the names are:
1. Google Earth
2. SearchSystems
3. Zillow
4. TaxSaleLists
5. NACO
6. Domania
These sites allow you to get the tax sale lists (TaxSaleLists.Com), find the assessor websites quickly (SearchSystems.net), actually view the properties (Zillow for residential and Google Earth for the rest), or get the links to the counties (NACO.org).
What this means is that you no longer have to go to the specific area, rent a motel room or hotel room and a rental car and spend a great deal of time and money doing proper due diligence.
Whatever you do, don't believe some of the "gurus" out there who tell you don't have to worry about any of the above, that "after all, you are just paying the taxes, how can you go wrong?". If you do not have a pretty good idea about what you are buying then you can definitely go wrong.
If you do your homework you will make money from tax sales and the internet.
