Buying a List vs Accessing a Database

Jack Butala: SX. Leave us your feedback for this podcast on iTunes and get the free ebook at landacademy.com, you don't even have to read it. Thanks for listening.

Jack Butala:                         Jack Butala with Jill DeWit.

Jill DeWit:                            Hello there.

Jack Butala:                         Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about buying from a list versus accessing a database. Pretty important stuff today, Jill. Happy Monday.

Jill DeWit:                            Thank you.

Jack Butala:                         Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandAcademy.com online community. It's free.

Jill DeWit:                            Cool. All right. Mike asked, "I recently purchased a piece of property with a tax lien on it. Is it likely that the property will be taken back by the county? Should I pay off the lien before I sell the property? What are the consequences of not paying off the lien?"

Jack Butala:                         Okay. This is a pro level question and I'm really, really glad he asked it. A lot of times we say, "Hey, buy a piece of property and don't worry about the taxes. You can sell it with the taxes associated, without the tax. You can pay the taxes. In urban areas, the taxes can be substantial. A lot of times it's better just to buy the property. There's back taxes on it. You know that. You checked them out. You called the treasurer and everybody understands. With tax liens, if there has a tax lien, it's pretty far back. You do not want to mess with this. What you want to do is call the treasurer, it's almost always the treasurer at the county or sometimes it's the board of supervisors, and pay the lien off. This can get expensive. You want to really make sure that the deal economically works before you get all the way into it.

Having said that, tax liens are a fantastic way to make a ton money in real estate. That's way beyond the scope of the show and it's Monday and I want to try to have some fun. Just saying the word tax on Monday is painful.

Jill DeWit:                            That's right. No wonder Jill's glossed over, but everybody listening their eyes started to gloss over.

Jack Butala:                         This is the shortest I can answer it. The takeaway from it is if you're purchasing a property that's got a tax lien on it, you could lose it all. You just want to make sure that you address the tax lien so that you can again control the property. That's the takeaway. If you have a question or you want to be one the show, reach out to either one of us on LandAcademy.com. Today's topic buying a list, an ownership list, property ownership list versus accessing an accessor type database. Boy, this could be one of the shortest shows ever, Jill.

Jill DeWit:                            You think so? I have a lot to say.

Jack Butala:                         Oh, good. Good.

Jill DeWit:                            Oh, that's so darn funny.

Jack Butala:                         Hey, can you carry me on the show then?

Jill DeWit:                            Because my list is so long it's not even funny. This is so important to me that I did a whole blog about this. It was titled "Hey, buddy, you want to buy a list?" It's like buying a list from someone around the corner and in the alley. "Hey, 50 bucks. I'll give you a list of all the property owners." Don't do that.

Jack Butala:                         Carry me on this show.

Jill DeWit:                            Here, I have a laundry list of things and I will go through them happily here.

Jack Butala:                         Let me give just a tiny bit of background then you can jump in. What we do, if you're new to listening, and what our group does is we send offers to people in the mail that own property and we send them for substantially less than we think t...