How to profit from online land flipping

Are you looking to acquire some property for pennies on the dollar? You probably won't score your dream house, but you can definitely find some great deals that can quickly be flipped by attending tax deed sales.

A tax deed sale is simply where the county forecloses on the property owner for non payment of real estate taxes. The process for administering tax deed sales varies widely by state and even by county. In Ohio for example, tax deed sales are done as Sheriff Sales, which is the exact same department that does the mortgage foreclosures. In Arkansas, there is a state office called the Commissioner of State Lands that handles all tax deed sales. In other states, tax deeds sales are at the county level with either the Treasurer, the Circuit Clerk or the Auditor handling the sale. As you might imagine, it is very important to understand your local regulations.

The tax deed bidding process is determined by local regulations: some jurisdictions require the minimum bid at the auction to be the appraised value or a fraction of the appraised vale of the property. Other jurisdictions use the taxes owed as the minimum bid.

Here's where it really gets interesting. If the property does not sell at the initial sale, some jurisdictions allow for the state or county to sell the property with no minimum bid no matter what is owed. For example, in Arkansas, I have bought property from the Commissioner of State Lands for as little as $25. Read that again. It is not a misprint. Not $2500, not $250, but $25! I sold the property a month later for several hundred dollars. Does that kind of deal happen every day? Of course not! But it does happen.

So, how do you find these kinds of deals. If you don't know the regulation in your state, call your county money person, whether its called the Treasurer or Tax Collector and ask what the procedure is for delinquent taxes. They should be able to tell you when the next tax sale is. Then call the appropriate department and find out what the procedure is for the properties that do not sell at the initial auction. Are they sold at another auction? Are they at a list somewhere that you can buy straight off of? Be persistent and you will soon find the pot of gold.

In summary, tax deeds can be super lucrative if you know where to look and what to ask. So like Nike says, "Just Do It!"

So, you bought a property in another state through either a tax sale or just good old fashioned detective work. Now, how the heck do you sell it? Why not try internet auctions? It works wonders for me and can work for you too. While there are many auction sites, I prefer eBay and Bid4Assets for my real estate selling.

You may think that selling real estate over the internet sounds like an awkward idea. However, the exposure the real estate receives over such a widespread media like the internet is an investor's dream. When selling tax defaulted properties, and especially in areas where there are a lot of vacation properties, it can make the difference between losing money and making a huge profit.

One of the best things about selling real estate on auction is that it "markets" to many areas around the world, not just a local area. Advertising on auction makes the property available to more than 100 million potential buyers, including those from other countries. Visitors can browse through the property details 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without the investor having to explain the details about the property to every single prospect wanting information.

So, now that you know that you can sell real estate on internet auction, how do you actually do it? Here are some basics of what options are available on eBay and Bid4Assets.

On eBay you can either sell on Auction, Fixed Price or on Classified Ad format.

For each of these selling formats, the investor furnishes additional information regarding his or her property. Details may include lot size, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, type of property, year built, and other information. The auction listing period must also be specified, where the choices range from 1-, 3-, 5-, 7-, 10-, or 30-days, or a 30- or 90-day non-auction listing.

For tax defaulted properties, you will most likely be selling vacant land on auction. For vacant land, eBay charges a flat rate listing fee of $35 and a Final Value Fee of another $35. There are also upgrades that you can get such as bold, highlight, and featured. I recommend that you take advantage of these upgrades because land is a very competitive category.

On Bid4Assets, the procedure varies slightly. Bid4Assets charges a flat rate fee of $5 to list a property and 10% of the Final Value. Because there is less up front risk, I personally prefer this procedure and use Bid4Aseets for most of my selling activities. Bid4Assets will also delete accounts of non paying bidders, which of course is a seller's dream come true.

Selling real estate on auction is growing in popularity as the internet stretches it's outreach to more countries. Although nothing beats direct and personal inspection of property, the convenience of having an auction connect seller and potential buyer is definitely appreciated.

If you would like to sign up for email alerts, send an email here to join my mailing list. I'll let you know how my ebook project is progressing.

There are a lot of junk and misinformation real estate related products out there. However, I highly recommend Darius M. Barazandeh. He is an attorney with lots of experience in the area of tax sales.

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