Humanity i
(Business • Government)
Who says, with any degree of authority, that American ingenuity is dead? Not I, certainly.
When the first morning sunbeam of Demand peeks out above the horizon line, the ingenious among us are there! like a gang of famished seagulls, ready fill to it full of Supply.
For instance, you might notice your neighbor cooling his heels on a front porch swing, and all you see is a guy who got laid off at the chemical refinery two months ago, trying to figure out how he’s going to make his next house payment.
But to the folks at places such as RogueInvestor, who see the glass as half full, that neighbor represents rewards of the highest order. At least if, as is likely, he’s delinquent on a few thousand dollars in property taxes.
“You Can Safely Earn 18% to 240% in Government Tax Lien Certificates and Create a Cash Flow Empire Now in Foreclosures!” proclaims Rogue. And it turns out investors of like mind are busy trying to put together such empires all across this great nation.
You know what they say: “In misery is opportunity!” And at no time in recent memory has financial misery been in such predictable abundance.
The key, it seems, is tax liens. When homeowners like your neighbor have trouble paying their bills, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that they’ve fallen behind on their property taxes, too. In fact, the recession has put so many people behind on their property taxes that cities and counties across the United States have been trying to figure out how to deal with the expense of collecting on all those back taxes.
Enter the rogue investor, or someone like him, with the bright idea of buying this or that county’s delinquent tax debt. Now private enterprise – good old American ingenuity – owns your neighbor’s tax lien, and can do just about anything to collect it, too, like charging 18% interest plus late fees. Best of all, your neighbor’s other debts, such as his mortgage payment, are subordinate to the tax lien.
It’s a swell deal for the counties, because the rogue investor pays their gob of tax liens off in full. Then, if your neighbor can sell his pickup to raise the cash, he pays off rogue investor, who walks away with at least an 18% profit. Otherwise, rogue investor forecloses, and owns your neighbor’s property for the price of the tax lien.
Sure, the house will sit vacant for a couple years while rogue investor plays hardball with your former neighbor’s mortgage company, but you can’t Free Enterprise without cracking a couple of eggs once in a while.
Here in Texas, it turns out our county leaders are not so crass as to sell off their bad tax debt to the first rogue investor who comes along. We still do things the old fashioned way, using a little tax money to pay a law firm to conduct delinquent tax sales on the steps of our antique courthouses.
Rogue investor can buy all the delinquent properties he wants – if he gets the highest bid. But the property owner has six months to sell his pickup, come up with the cash and buy his property back out of delinquency. Which is fine with rogue investor, because the property owner also has to pay a fee equal to 25% of the overdue tax bill.
“If the property owner redeems in one month, your effective annual interest rate is an incredible 300%,” RogueInvestor gushes. “Success in life is often about finding hidden opportunities before everyone else, and tax deed sales are definitely a hidden investment opportunity.”
In the spirit of entrepreneurial camaraderie, rogue investor is willing to unearth the secrets of this new hidden opportunity in the form of a book, with additional books on real estate foreclosures and REITs, a CD tax-lien-buying investment course and a set of ginsu knives thrown in. Plus, it turns out that if one acts now, one can have the whole secret of success for $297, whereas most of the time it sells for $497.
Maybe you and your pals could band together and buy a copy for your neighbor sitting over there on his porch.
→ B.Dunn, Aug 18, 2009, 04 35 am
