The Science of Flipping - The Hidden Gem of Tax Lien Investing with 33-Year Expert | Tony Martinez

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

FREE Training: To Learn how to acquire properties for as little as $4,000, Go to: FreeCrashCourse.com Visit the U.S. Tax Lien Association Website: USTaxLienAssociation.com -- In this episode of The Science of Flipping, I sit down with Tony Martinez, a 33-year veteran in tax lien investing and founder of the U.S. Tax Lien Association. Tony reveals how he acquires properties for as little as $4,000–$20,000—free and clear, with no mortgage or liens—using Over-the-Counter (OTC) Tax Deed Acquisitions, a strategy that bypasses competitive tax auctions. He explains how counties hold thousands of tax-defaulted properties, why most investors overlook these opportunities, and how his 14-point research system ensures he only buys profitable properties. Tony debunks common myths about tax liens, warns against bad information in the industry, and shares real-life case studies of deals where he and his students have turned small investments into huge profits. If you’re struggling to find off-market deals, this episode is a must-listen—and Tony’s FreeCrashCourse.com is the perfect place to start. 🚀   -- About Tony: Tony Martinez is the Founder & CEO of the U.S. Tax Lien Association (USTLA), an organization that shows people how to achieve their financial goals through the power of tax lien investing. Tony has over 33 years of expert experience investing in tax lien certificates and tax deed properties and has completed over 2,500 successful tax deed property transactions for his own portfolio and has the irrefutable public record documentation to prove it. USTLA is the “go to” resource for top real estate investment experts as well as novices for the most credible, accurate, and up to date information on investing in tax lien certificates and tax deed properties. Tony and his team of experts pride themselves on helping average Americans starting with limited capital enter the lucrative world of real estate investing.   -- 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧: After investing in real estate for over 17 years and almost 3000 deals done, Justin has created a business that generates 7 figures in active income through wholesaling and fix and flipping as well as accumulating millions of dollars of rental properties including 5 apartment buildings, 50+ single family homes, and 1 storage facility Justins longevity in real estate is due to his ability to look around the corners, adapt to changing markets, perfecting Raising private capital, and focusing on lead generation which allows him to not just wholesale and fix & flip, but also accumulate wealth through long term holds. His success in real estate led him to start The Entrepreneur DNA podcast, The Science Of Flipping podcast and REI LIVE education company, where he has coached and mentored thousands of aspiring and active investors over the last decade. He is a nationally recognized speaker and is on a mission to educate as many people as possible on becoming a successful dynamic real estate investor. 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒔 𝑯𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝑻𝒐 𝑺𝒂𝒚 𝑨𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝑱𝒖𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏:  “Justin is one of the best trainers in this space. He really gives everything to his tribe.” – Brent Daniels (TTP) “Justin’s ability to connect with people and help them understand what he is teaching, is unparallelled” – Kent Clothier (REWW) “We have been in the trenches flipping homes in Phoenix for over a decade, he is one of the best to do it.” – Sean Terry (Flip2Freedom) Subscribe To Justin Colby: http://youtube.com/justincolby View All My Videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/JustinColby  

We have a we have saying here at USLA it's called price solves all issues, right? If we can get them at the right price we can solve just about anything. That's right. It would pop up now again We can't overstate that probably can't not do research. We know going in We're gonna walk through the property and I'm gonna have a rehab estimate before we make the acquisition So I'm gonna know going in a really really good idea when that price quote comes back. I'm gonna know my numbers a really, really good idea. When that price quote comes back, I'm gonna know my numbers. The vast majority of our properties

that we acquire right now, the total purchase price when we buy it directly that way, they range from about $4,000 to about $20,000. That's total purchase price. Yeah, that's insane. What is up, the Science Flipping family? Welcome back to another incredible episode. I have a guest that I've known for years.

It is a strategy that he has been using for over 33 years. In fact, my guest, Tony Martinez, has been the founder of the United States, or US Tax Lien Association, US Tax Lien Association. He has done thousands of tax lien properties, buying and selling them. And in fact, I wanted him here because it's an underutilized vertical in our space.

So Tony, what's up brother? Hey man, how's it going? Great to be here. Super excited to have you. As I just mentioned, the reason why I think this is so valuable for our listeners and if you're watching this on YouTube is because this is a strategy that obviously after 33 years you have proven time and time

again, but not a lot of people know about this strategy within the real estate space. The whole thing is it has been around for a long time. I've been doing it for a long time. More and more people are starting to find out about it. There's other guys out there teaching information about investing in tax liens. I find it to be not a whole lot of credible information. I mean, actual people who there's people teaching and there's people like myself, we teach, right? We show people exactly how to invest in tax foreclosed real estate,

and we actually do it. You know, I just mentioned I've completed over 2,500 I've completed over 2,500 tax-debate property acquisitions since 1992 until now. And the difference for us is we have the irrefutable public record documentation to prove it. We have every single deed that's been recorded with our names on it. And that's from my own portfolio. That's not invested in other people's money for them. And so that's a big part of it. That is really important in today's marketplace with so many, you know, I don't know how to say it gently but just fake gurus in the market.

Sure. Yeah, so listen, one of the things that, you know, a lot of people know I went down the path of kind of like quick claim deeds and being able to stop foreclosures and I went down that path for quite some time. And I want to relate similarities and disassociate the things that aren't necessarily similar with like,

what is gonna be the difference between your bank normal trustee foreclosure versus maybe a tax lien property, a tax foreclosure and the differences kind of between the two. Oh, that's a great question, man. There's so many differences. Let's start there. They think there's tax sales that a lot of people go to. And right now, in my experience, the tax sales

are so competitive. As you know, it's a tough market out there for real estate for a lot of people right now to find kind of distressed real estate, if you will. So people hear the word tax sale, and they naturally assume, like, I can get a bargain. And you just have so many people showing up to these tax sales

that they don't know what they're doing. And they're literally bidding these properties up to values that just don't make sense. So we've developed strategies over these 32 years where we're acquiring properties without having to go to a tax sale. There's multiple strategies in different markets So we've developed strategies over these 32 years where we're acquiring properties without having to go to a tax sale. There's multiple strategies in different markets where we're actually buying properties, tax

defaulted properties, directly from the county and not having to compete at an auction. So there's a very, very big difference between any other type of real estate investing, including bank foreclosures, than the strategies that we employ here at USTLA. And I'll just give you the name of what, and the name of one is called over-the-counter, tax-deb property acquisitions is one of our number one strategies that we teach and that we employ ourselves.

And this is a strategy where counties just have massive, massive excess inventories, properties that went to a tax sale at one time and didn't sell, and they just build up these massive inventories, and they reach the point where they're just liquidating properties. Now here's the...if there's a flying ointment, it's this, is there's too many properties on the list. For example, a property we just acquired, the list had 7,000 properties on it.

Now, the challenge with the pluses, there's 7,000 properties. The minuses, there's 7,000 properties you have to try to figure out how to do the research on to find the great properties. And that's where our expertise comes in. So that difference is massive compared to everyone else. People talk about off-market properties. Every property we acquire is off-market. They never hit the MLS. They never show up.

Once they're on the OTC list, they never show up to an auction ever again. How did the property get to that list again? The markets were, I would say, the highest level experts in. It'll start off as what's called a tax lien certificate, which means a person didn't pay their property taxes. It comes up for what's called a tax lien certificate sale. And at that sale, what's happening is, is they're not selling the property yet.

They're just selling the back taxes. They're selling the debt. So people like you and I can come down to the tax lien certificate sale and put up the money. And that's what you're doing is you're paying someone else's back taxes for them. In return, you receive what's called the tax lien certificate, and that taxing certificate pays interest rate. Yeah, and at some point you have the opportunity to foreclose because in the right states you take the senior lien over even banks, right? Absolutely correct.

The difference here is in a lot of states that have very low interest rates and long redemption periods, thousands and thousands of those taxing certificates don't get purchased at the auction. Those taxing certificates go back into the county's inventory and they sit there, right? While the redemption period,

that grace period that the property owner has to come in and pay off their property taxes, for example, could be, most of them are right around three years. Every day that they sit at the county's inventory, the redemption period for that taxing certificate is expiring. So what ends up happening is when the redemption period expires, all taxing certificates are still sitting the counties inventories not generating any revenue So what I happen is either the county will foreclose on the property themselves or they'll sell them off to another Entity either a county entity or a state entity which converts it from the taxing certificate to a deed

And then what we're doing is we're stepping in and just buying the deeds directly. Mm. And so that's where, so one of the questions I was going to ask, where and how do you find them? So where do you go buy those deeds directly? You're going to be targeting lists at different counties. And again, it's not an easy, quick explanation on targeting markets and lists and finding the list. But just in general, what a person would be looking for, the easiest way is if you're

speaking to a county or a county official is just finding out, like, what do you do with all the properties and all the tax and certificates that don't get purchased at auction? Okay. That's really the big question that needs to be asked. Now, it takes a lot of research to do that. The difference for us is we've spent, you know, I actually made my first tax and certificate investments in November of 1991. So we've tapped into, we've been doing research ever since. So just identifying, you know, great markets to work in, knowing how to do the research, and again, just asking key questions and so some

counties do have these over-the-counter lists and a lot of counties don't so it's just a matter of doing the research to find the right markets. Are there so in a general sense are there just better markets like so I mentioned something I don't have a hundred percent clarity on maybe you can refresh me but there are certain states where a tax lien is senior to a bank lien. I don't believe it's all states, correct? No, it's all states.

It is all states, okay. It's all states. So is there any priority in what markets could be better? Right, and now I'll give you an example, because I get asked this all the time, right? So I'm more traditional, I'm more, you know, find a property of good value, fix and flip it, buy and hold it, do the burr method, just traditional, I'm more, you know, find a property of good value, fix and flip it, buy and hold it, do the burr method, just traditional, right? But people ask me, you

know, what market should I choose Justin? And I have my answer because my answer is a lot probably simpler than yours is gonna be. My answer is follow the money. Ever since the hedge funds broke into our world, which was definitely not around in 1991, let alone in 2007 when I started, when they broke into our world, which was definitely not around in 1991, let alone in 2007 when I started. When they broke into our world in you know 2016-ish, 2015, they had a lot more money than all of us right? So they were able to break into markets like Phoenix, which crushed me, you know the Vegas, the Phoenix, the Dallas, the all these different. And so I just started to say, okay I'm gonna go follow the big boy money.

And so now I always suggest markets like the Sunbelt in a more traditional real estate investing manner, fix and flip, buy and hold, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma. I love these markets for the more traditional, right? Not that you're not traditional, but the verticals, the way to acquire is a little different. Do you have a reason behind the markets you choose? Like what's your answer?

Ironically some of the some of the very same markets you just mentioned But ours are really based upon how the law because the difference for us the laws that pertain to property taxes are Completely different in every market. So It's not like that. If you know fixing and flipping in Texas, you know fixing and flipping in Oklahoma, right? And laws, rules, regulation,

it's not like that in the tax sale market, which is a plus and a minus. It's a plus for us, because again, no offense, but people in general are lazy and they're not gonna go do the research to figure out the differences. That's right.

We're okay with that. We love that actually. And so for us, sometimes it is the type of laws, rules, and regulations that a particular market has. And then another one is based on inventory. Sometimes the tough thing for us to answer the question for market conditions, they shift. They shift based upon what's available on the list this year.

So I did a bunch of investing in Billings, Montana, right? And then just the list, the properties that were coming up in the future years just weren't that good. So we just stung the investing there. I've done a bunch of investing, I mean, hundreds of properties bought and sold in Nebraska, right?

But I haven't invested in Nebraska in 10 years, right? And so it just kind of shifts based upon what's available in the marketplace. So that's one thing. And that's very simple too, is that it's not that difficult to figure that out because you can't... List of taxing certificates and list of tax foreclosed real estate, they're required by law to be made available to the general public.

So if there's an auction coming up, the county has to make it easily available, readily available to the general public at least 30 days prior to the auction. So that's not a, you know, it's not a big secret. And the...so being able to just contact the county, figure out when their auctions are, and request their list and seeing if there's anything good on it, doing the research, seeing if there's anything good on it, that's another part of it. And then certain markets, they just have a history of having massive inventories. And so...

Is that good or bad? Because every, because every blind man, right? So it's actually, it's actually good and bad, good and bad. The bad thing is for someone new who doesn't know what they're doing, doesn't know how to do the research, you know, they download a list and it has 18,000 properties on it. There's just, you know, there's gonna be stuff for a little bit, right. And so it does take an expertise and it doesn't take a high level. Listen, you don't need an MBA to do this. What you do need is you do need systems and you

do need processes based upon the market situation. And that is what we do here at USTLA. And so, but right now, I'll just tell you in general right now, let me tell you where we have active acquisitions going right now. And so this would this would mean, this is what I'm talking, 2024, 2025. And that doesn't mean that in 2026, they're going to be exactly the same. I'll give you a general sense so people will know. We have holdings in Ohio. We have holdings in Missouri.

We have holdings in, I'm talking about recent acquisitions. We have holdings in Alabama like you talked about Mississippi like you also discussed off the top of my head, yeah and We'll continue to those are markets I can tell you right now that we will definitely be focused on for 2025 we've done some very very small acquisitions in Michigan in 2024 and we're gonna be looking in Michigan this year and we'll see how that goes. So I know you and I, you know,

we've known each other for years and we were going back and forth via text and you're like, look at this property I just picked up for like five grand and it wasn't exactly five grand but it was 4,000 or 5,000 and some change. Like how, so when you go to these, the county, It wasn't exactly five grand, but it was 4,000 or 5,000, some change. So when you go to the county, I think it's a company that actually turns it

into a deed, right? Well, it's actually, there's still either county or state entities. So do you just make an offer in the same function, or do they say, hey, Tony, if you want it, it's $4,891,000. How is that possible? Yeah, in those markets, like you just discussed,

the way it works is you do all the research, looks like a great deal, and once we've done all the research, what you're doing is you're submitting an application. So you fill out this application, you submit it. Let's say it's a state entity or a county entity, doesn't really matter. And what they're gonna do is they're gonna send you back

what's called a price quote. Now, depending on the market, that price quote, all they're really doing in certain markets is they're punching that address in and they're pulling up all the back taxes, penalties, and interest owed. Your price is the back taxes, penalties, and interest owed, not a penny more, not a penny less. Other markets, they take their tax assessed value, which is super low because it's been sitting there for so many years, right, with no taxes being paid on it. And they take its 50% of the tax assessed value. So sometimes the tax assessed values on some of these properties, you know, the tax assessed

value could be $22,000. It could be $18,000. So we're still acquiring, even when they consider it a tax assessed value of $22,000 it could be $18,000. So we're still acquiring even when they consider it of tax assessed value of $22,000 We're acquiring a property for $11,000 free include with no mortgage on it and the liens on it. Yeah, and In that's incredible. I mean I bought properties Really great discounts, but when you're able to get a hundred thousand dollar property or you thereabouts right and you can pay five grand For it. I mean you just you have a winner. You can't lose or thereabouts, right? And you can pay five grand for it. I mean, you just, you have a winner. You can't lose in general sense, right?

In a general sense, like we have a, we have saying here at USLA, it's called price solves all issues, right? If we can get them at the right price, we can solve just about anything that would pop up. Now, again, we can't overstate that, right? We can't not do research. We know going in, right?

So when we do our research process, we're very thorough. We're super, super meticulous. We have current photos of the properties. If it's vacant, we're gonna have pictures all around the property. We're gonna have an aerial photo, a current aerial photo of the property.

If it's, you know, you're not supposed to really walk in, but if we can get in on them, we're going to walk through the property and I'm going to have a rehab estimate before we make the acquisition. So I'm going to know going in a really, really good idea. When that price quote comes back, I'm going to know my numbers. The vast majority of our properties that we acquire right now, the total purchase price when we buy it directly that way, they range from about $4,000 to about $20,000. That's total purchase price. Yeah, that's insane.

And so what would stop someone, let's just say you have a million dollars in cash, from going out and say, I'm just gonna go buy it bulk. I mean, is there any particular reason you'd say that person's not really thinking and here's why. Yeah, because the more you're talking about your life, you know, well, if they had a list of 300, right, tax deeds that you could go by for five grand, seven grand, eight grand, and someone could

say, I'm gonna go take a million of my cash and dump at it. Why would someone not want to do that? I guess? Well, if there's if there's 300 properties on the list, most of the properties on the list, and I say most, over 50% and far more than that, you're not gonna wanna buy them. They're burned out, right? They're industrial properties, they're raw land in the middle of nowhere. Every derogatory, you gotta understand, tax sale properties have problems, period and the story.

More problems than any other category of real estate out there. So what we have to navigate are all those crappy properties and weed them all the way off our list and end up what we call our short list of things that are possibilities. And there's just no way, just some random person just because they happen to have a million dollars is going to grab a list that we grab and be able to identify a million dollars worth of properties to acquire and just go out and buy it in bulk. That makes sense at least, right? I guess in theory they could go do it, but then they're going to end up with some rural land pieces and they're going to end up with just a bunch of nonsense.

And there's a lot of similarity to what you've already said within just a normal traditional real estate business in the fix and flip business and buying whole business, right? So even when we were going back and forth via text, again, let's just say you bought it for 4,800 bucks and I think you said you put it in roughly $30,000 and the home was worth $80,000. I mean that's that's exactly what normal and I'm not saying tax liens is not normal, it's just a different way of acquiring it. Yeah, but there's a lot of the same similarities. So if you can learn what Tony does,

and by the way, Tony, let's, where can they learn more about you, US, TLA? Like, where do you want to have them go? Because if you can learn from the expert Tony, I am not the expert in this, Tony is, then you can understand how to find properties that by the way, Tony has the golden goose, meaning like 99% of my world

is not gonna go do what Tony does. So if you wanna learn what Tony does, go find Tony. And so where do we want them to go find you real quick? I think the best thing to do, I have a free crash course online. And the way I designed it is, I take all the, again, I'm just gonna tell you know, I take all of the, you know, again, I'm just gonna tell you like it,

there's so much crap information out there. And so many fake gurus in the taxing space. The one thing I do to separate myself is I just put out information that's better for free, that's better than what they charge for. So if they go to freecrashcourse.com, that's freecrashcourse.com, there's a three module training that I put together.

And I promise you, if they'll watch one module, the first module, they will learn more valid information in that one module. It's about, it's not even 30 minutes long. Then they will find anywhere else on the internet. And real case studies, copies of deeds, I mean, real validation, showing exactly what we do and how we do it. Free Crash Course dot com. Yeah, free Crash Course dot com. And so there's a lot of

similarities in what we're doing. You just have the right way to find a deeply discounted property, right? So even when I'm coaching my community, we're always talking about motivation and getting the right number. There's no difference there, but you have the secret sauce and how do you find that actual asset? So when you have a list, right? I'm assuming you treat it very similar to if I had pulled the list of homes in any level of neighborhood. I want to know the type of asset it is. I want to know that how much construction I'm gonna need. I to see some picture right is there any difference once you kind of have the list or you looking at the same? Well, there's there's

the way our our lists come is that the challenge is like some lists don't even have you'll have a list of you know 800 properties and they there's no physical address. So we have to start with property number and And there's no physical address. So we have to start with property number and take that property number. And from that property number, one of those digits, right, it could be a two-digit or three-digit, is going to tell what type of asset class it is. It's going to tell whether it's land, a single-family residential, industrial. And so we have to kind of dig and do some research, find the key to that property number, and then sort our list based upon that to start off with.

So our list and the other challenge for us, lists vary from county to county. What they put on the list is gonna vary county to county. And so really you have to understand what each column means. And so that's one thing that's very different because it's not just like, hey, here's a list of great properties

with all the information is gonna be the same on every single list. But again, that's just something that some of this, and I know it sounds like, oh man, this is just like too much of a pain in the ass to really do. And it really isn't, man. It's just, it's new. People aren't familiar with it.

So it sounds like a big pain in the ass. And it can be if you don't know what you're doing, of course it's gonna, of course. You send me a list like that, Tony. After 18 years of business, I'm still going to go, I don't even know what to do here. You know what I mean? Yeah, but if you and I sat down for a few hours and I pointed everything out, at least in that market, dude, you'd go, okay, I got it now. I can sort this list. And then once you sort the list for us on tax sale properties, we have a 14 point research process. So you have to go through 14 more points

once you identify the property. And part of that is the analysis. And that's really gonna tell you, okay, this is worth pursuing a little bit further. And then when you get that final price quote, right, comes in, now you can get all your actual numbers in place and it doesn't take forever.

That's one thing that we do in the trainings that people invest in here at USLA. We'll do a live training like this, a Zoom training, and we actually walk people through the... We do a live demonstration. We download a list right online, and we walk them through the actual research process. And this will be for an actual upcoming auction, right? That's gonna be coming up in the next 30 days. And we show people exactly how to do the research. And that's a big part.

Is this something, when you say the word auction, I've bought a lot of homes at auction down in Phoenix in the more traditional sense, right? So are your members or students, are they looking at making bids at auction or are you suggesting or advising or coaching to wait till it gets turned over to that other entity and then buy the deed from the end the other entity yeah we start we start all of our beginners and even even people

who have experience investing in real estate we have what's called a basic strategy and it's a bunch of criteria for it. We start everybody off at over the counter first. We just want someone to get a really great deal under their belt, build their confidence, give them a way to have a big win up front and not only just have a big win, but really start to master that research process.

A lot of people just, I will tell you dude, I can't remember, and I seriously can't remember the last time I bought a property at a live auction. Yeah. So when you said over the counter, you meant once it's already turned into a deed, go to the counter, buy the deed, be done, right? That's it. And then your strategy again, kind of with the similarities,

I want people to understand, this is no different than what I teach, except the major except is he's targeting one very niche type of list that there takes a system a structure in a process that he is the expert at I am not he is and then you can burr the property you can fix and flip the property you can keep it as a long-term like there's no difference at that point correct? Yeah so I mean we have three main things that we do with our properties one when we just sell we sell a lot, we just, we're actually wholesaling to wholesalers right now. Wholesalers are looking for great deals, they're struggling to find them. I'll give you some examples. I actually pulled some up on my

computer specifically to talk to you about. Recent acquisition, $7,560. Just turn, all we do is we clean them up, right? We clean them out, do the landscape, and then turn on sold it for 30,000. I love that. That's a very good one. Second one, so our new clients do a lot of sell as is, because a lot of times, they're not, our clients, probably like your students as well, they're not necessarily living in the neighborhood

where they're doing these deals, right? That's right. That's right. Our clients aren't either. And so to get a person comfortable investing out of state, it's best to start them off with just a sell as is, right? So we just- Well, Coney, I'm gonna tell you now,

next thing we gotta do after this episode is you gotta send me all your, cause I'm a buyer, right? Like a real buyer. And so it's just as hard for me. Yes, I have a marketing budget. Yes, I have a team. Finding good deals is still hard finding good deals.

So the extra on rotation we're gonna have a partner is like, hey, what do you got? Like I need to buy some stuff, right? So that'll be in the next place. Yeah. So I'll just tell you two more. This is actually one of my clients. I wanted to show some or talk about some of my clients did. And he's actually, he's been a client for a few years now.

He's a little bit more advanced than those what he's doing, but he sold that last property, bought it for 75, 60, sold it for 30. This is all in one month. Bought a second one and he paid 8,026 and sold it for 22,000. And then the third one, he sold that month, he bought it for 8,851, sold it for 30 and all in one month.

I mean, that's like 70,000. He basically flipped nine grand three times and made like a hundred grand. Yeah, just about. Right, because the most expensive one you said was 80, 800. So let's just round that up to nine grand. Yeah. He bought one, flipped it for 30,

bought one, flipped it for 22, bought one, flipped it for 30, right? So you're just go 30, 30, 30 for sake of example. Yeah. And it's not that clean, but call it $85,000 and he took the same nine grand he had from the beginning and just flipped it each time, right? So he needed less than 10 grand in his pocket

to do this business and he made $85,000. And listen, man, and I know we're on a podcast, right? But if we were, where I could actually show, I could show the picture of the property, the actual deed, what he paid for it, and then all the closing statements for each one of those deals. Like we don't showcase studies

unless we have the supporting documentation. We just have a big thorn in our side where there's so many guys that are so full of crap in the marketplace and we just hope that if they can't prove it, why would you believe it? Well, I agree 100%. And you and I are been in this business for a long time and there's a lot of newbies to our business of education and you know it's because they go and do a couple deals and

then they want to educate right and they think it's easier to be a leader and an educator and that's just not the truth either right and so I can appreciate that. And again, what is the freecrashcourse.com, right? Freecrashcourse.com. Part of that is you actually showing what we're talking about, right? You're showing deals, HUDs, settlement statements. Like you're actually showing that to say, guys, I'm actually doing this business.

My members are actually doing this business. I'm not teaching theory. Yeah, so the other thing we do in that crash course is things like, you know, when you buy a property for call it $7,500 well it's public record well Zillow pulls you know when it was when Zillow shows what a property sold for right they pull from the public records so I show like if I talk about a client bought a property for $7,500 I show that on that it showed up on Zillow that it was actually acquired for $7,500, I showed that it showed up on Zillow that

it was actually acquired for $7,500. So when they go through this crash course, you guys that are listening, when you go through this crash course, I want you to call me on it. Any case study I show you, you'll see the supporting documentation. Sometimes I'm showing you the actual deed and what the acquisition price is right on a recorded deed So everything is there man. Yeah, which is great and again, I think in the in the age of YouTube and podcasts and and everyone getting very squirrely, right? I think that the challenges people get very squirrely about where to start what to do

How to handle the real estate space because there's so many different things now, right? Innovation, land, and tax liens, and it's just a lot, right? Yeah. Being able to find a niche that people, it isn't easy for people to enter. Not saying what you're doing, Tony, is difficult, but there's layers deeper than just pulling a list from,

you know, any list provider and start cold calling, right? You're a layer or two deeper than just pulling a list from, you know, any list provider and start cold calling, right? You're a layer or two deeper than that. Then you're going to find some gold that most people won't find, right? Exactly. That's the reality. Yeah. Listen, so many of our new clients are just frustrated with the general real estate investment

marketplace. And really, the people who already know, right, have put in quality effort, right? They're already driven. They work hard to learn to work hard at something and they're looking for something where they can work hard and It's worth it, right? You know, that's really the the the people who are doing really well in our program right now Let me ask you another you know, as most coaches will say, they'll suggest certain lists to pull, lists to work, cold call, direct mail,

whatever in the movie. So these lists on like REI lead machine or Propstream or Batchleads or any name the name, right? When they go and see tax liens, what are they seeing? What are you advising against? What should they do? What shouldn't they be doing when they see tax liens on a list provider?

They should be concerned. Okay. So if they see a tax lien on, you know, they pull and they see a 35-day or whatever. Tax liens, right? The question is like they go to, you know, PropStream or they go to a batch leads. And there's a list that if you click it, it's all the tax liens in so-and-so city, Dallas, Texas, wherever. And so, there's 2,000 of them. Like, what could, what can they do? What should they do? Where is it at in the phase? Like, how did they get recorded and grabbed by Batch Leads or PropStreamer, any of these providers? where's that property at? Yeah, I wouldn't rely on those lists.

And the reason why is you just, there's no way for us from pulling that list to know where in the process those properties are at. If you're not getting them directly from the county, I'd be concerned. Yeah, okay. And that's the answer I was kind of looking for or hoping for too is like,

people are always saying, find motivated sellers and use tax liens, that's a great lien because, you know, they're senior to the bank lien. You're not wrong, but you don't know where in this trajectory it is. And a lot of these homeowners can make up the tax debt, right? Exactly.

And you don't know if it's going to foreclosure. So I think there's a lot of unknowns. I don't, what do you say is a bad list though? I don't know if I'd say it's a bad list, but it may not get you to where Tony would suggest to get. The big variable is this. Those tax liens, and in a lot of those states where you see those tax liens,

they might only be one year delinquent on their property taxes. And they're gonna pay it off. Yeah. And that's really, it does not point to a motivated seller at all. Understanding, if it's a decent property, I mean, if it's a decent property and it happens to be a person's primary residence,

I can tell you right now, they're paying it off, right? No one loses, and I'll just tell you in general, when you start talking about houses in the 300 and 400 and 500 and $600,000 above price point, and I'll just tell you in general, when you start talking about houses in the $300,000 and $400,000 and $500,000 and $600,000 above price point and it's a person's primary residence, you get zero of those that don't redeem. Right? They all redeem. They're just no one in their right mind is ever going to lose a valuable property like

that for a few thousand dollars in back taxes. Just doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. Now, the reason why people think that that's a possibility is because there are some jerks out there implying that that's the case and it's just not. It never has been. What do you say if there was a landlord that had a tax lien, out-of-state landlord with a tax lien, that might be a better filter?

It would be a better filter, but again, you're still gambling because it could be a first, they could be just dealing with one year. Or even less, right? You don't know when they're pulling the list. They could be dealing with it for 30 days and on day 60, they're going to get a paycheck and pay it off, right? You just don't know where it is. Yeah, you would

really spin your wheels for a long time on those lists. Man, when you start talking about, for me, and especially after all these years, I'm just going after properties I know I'm gonna acquire. I'm not playing this, let me look at a lien and hope someone doesn't pay their property taxes. That's just not reality.

Yeah, and I like that you're not just going to the auction to bid on the certificate or buy that. So let's talk about that a little bit. I think that might even be a little bit of a known vertical or model, right, is buying tax liens for the return, right? Talk to that. Like, how do you look at that?

How do you view that? What are your thoughts on it? Again, the way it's being portrayed in the marketplace is bull crap. And what I mean by that is, listen, people are, you know, there's literally ads out there right now by other people saying average Americans are getting rich because they're earning these double-digit returns on taxing certificates. I can tell you right now, people aren't getting rich from double-digit returns because think about it. Let's say you had $100,000.

And most of my clients don't start off with $100,000 cash sitting in the bank. But let's say they did. And you invested in a taxing certificate, and it paid 18% interest. OK, so you made $18,000 for the year. That's below the poverty line in America. If you wanted to earn a six-figure

income, you'd have to invest a half a million dollars to earn a six-figure income, earning interest only. And so there's so many other variables on top of it. That's if you got the full interest rate. When you go to a taxing certificate sale, you're bidding on the tax lien. And what that means, like in Florida where you live, they open the bid at 18% But then they bid it down and the person willing to accept the lowest interest rate is a successful bidder Well, historically if you average it out across the board in the state of Florida You're looking at a 5% interest rate Wow Yeah, wow That's a known statistic

You're not even keeping up with inflation at that point. You're not. And here's the other challenge. Let's say you invest in a taxing certificate in Florida. Let's say you got the entire 18%. Well, it's annualized. So if the property owner redeems in month six, you got 9%. And then you have to go figure out reinvesting the capital again.

And so I would just tell you right now, there is no one truly getting rich investing in the tax liens against properties. If they are, I'd like to see the math on how they're doing it. Yeah. And then I guess the only upside if someone were to do that is at some point foreclose on them if you don't get paid type of idea. Yeah. And again, so the other challenge with that is so people are gonna sit around and wait two or three years. Right. It's hoping. Just hoping please don't

pay your property taxes. Right. And that's just you know for from a wealth building strategy standpoint sitting around and waiting hoping for someone to not pay their property taxes is not a good strategy. Yeah. So when you go, and everyone needs to go to freecrashcourse.com, watch what he does in his three modules. But when you do go and acquire this, let's just use the deal that I'm thinking about that you texted me, like, look at what I just did.

You buy it for $4,300. Can you wholesale it before you actually have to fund it or do you have to fund it? You have to fund it. Okay. Yeah. And can you use like transactional funding if you had a buyer already for, let's just say, you call your friend and say,

hey dude, you're gonna love this flip. You know, I'll sell it to you for 20 grand. And he's like, yeah, bro, I'm in. You go fund it for 24, 48 hours of transactional funding and sell it off. Are there any regulations on length, like at all no there's no real regulations what when the price quote comes in though you have ten days to fund it okay they give you they give you a ten day so what we do we do all the

research in advance and all the way down to like we know we're gonna buy it if we get if this price quote comes in and the price comes in not ridiculous and our number yeah then you know what once it comes in we know we know we're gonna fund it that's great and then you can just resell it you can put it on the MLS you knew it are you on the home you own him now the owner you're now the owner and you're getting at such deep, I mean in my world and I am really good at what I do, there's no properties I'm buying for five grand or six grand or eight grand like your student. He's buying, he bought three properties all for under

nine grand. Like that doesn't exist in my world. I don't care what market, I don't care how bad the condition, it just doesn't exist, right? And so I can't kind of emphasize this enough and why I'm excited to have you. This is a very real strategy. You've been doing it for 31 years, right? And you know, so there's people who talk about it and then there's people who do it.

So I can vouch for my guy Tony, known each other for years now. And you know, freecrashcourse.com. Where else do you maybe want to push them or have them be yours, that kind of the main place of pointing out? That would be where they can get my crash course. They just want to go to our website

and just look at, there's a bunch of general information about investing in taxing. I mean, high quality articles there that explain the process and more information. They can just go to ustaxingassociation.com, ustaxlineassociation.com, justTaxLeanAssociation.com. Just Google it and we'll pop up and just click on our website and you can get a bunch

of information there as well. And then the crash course will give them a really, really great overview of exactly the strategies we teach. Yeah, I was just gonna highlight that one last time. Like if you wanna actually see, you know, we're doing a podcast right now, but if you wanna see some of these case studies,

you actually feature them, you show them, you show HUDs, you show deals, you show this again, to vouch for actually really doing business versus just talking about it. Absolutely, yeah, it'd be great for them to see it. Well, Tony, I appreciate you coming on. Excited for all my listeners, all my viewers to understand this strategy,

because like I said, I've done this a long time and I'm not buying properties for five, six, seven, eight, nine thousand dollars, right? Yep, absolutely. And you are and your clients are, right? And your members are. And that's really important. It's one thing for us to do it.

It's another thing for our members to be able to do what we're able to do and to find a path to do that. So thank you for coming on my friend. I really appreciate it. Go to free crashcourse.com and if you thought this was worth sharing then please do share this with at least two of your friends and be ready for the next episode. Tony I appreciate you. Alright thanks Justin. Appreciate you too man. Alright y'all see you on the next episode. Peace.