Let me guess: you've probably never even heard of deedgrabbing before, and stumbled on this article by googling the term to try to find out what it was, or by following another link here from a real estate investing site. If it was the latter, it was probably a tax lien or tax deed investing site- trying to persuade you that investing in tax sale properties is the best way to make money in real estate. That is certainly the case-- just not the way other people are telling you to do it. Before I tell you how I made big money my first time out deedgrabbing (of course, at the time there was no term for it-- Rick Dawson has since coined the term), let me tell you why tax lien and tax deed investing is NOT the best way (or in many cases, even a good way) to make money from tax sale properties.

First of all, my friend, you're a little late. There are already multi-million dollar corporations that buy up millions of dollars worth of liens at your local county tax sale. They have professionals on staff analyzing financial data to figure out which properties are actually worth their time and money to invest in. Thus, they're going to be going after the very same properties as you are 99% of the time. Since they have tons of money to work with, their maximum bid is going to trump yours, every time. All you're going to get out of attending the government tax sale is a headache, and a pain in your you-know-where from your wife or husband kicking you in the rear.

That shou
ld be reason enough to deter you from attempting to invest at the tax sale. If it wasn't, here's another reason: what you see isn't necessarily what you get. You oftentimes can't inspect the property you're bidding on. In the case of tax liens, since it takes years many times to acquire the property's deed (the owners have a nice long period to pay you off, and do 95% of the time), in that time the property can deteriorate quite horrendously. If you're in it for the interest and don't mind holding a pricy lien on a property (since everyone was bidding against you, and bid it up so high), then great- IF you get paid off. Find yourself in that unlucky 5% and you may have a property on your hands that you paid dearly for that may have a giant hole in its roof- or no roof at all.

If you haven't guessed it by now, you needs loooooots and lots and lots of cash to go this route.

It's really not necessary to go to all this trouble. There's a much better way to get this very same property, BEFORE the sale (or time to pay off the lien is up), directly from the owners, and at a tiny, tiny percentage of the cost. It involves contacting the owners at a strategic time, knowing the right things to say to make them see that selling to you for pennies on the dollar is their best option, and then selling the property immediately BEFORE you even have to pay the taxes off.

That's how I made $7375.75 off my first property- did I mention it was on my first try, and in a matter of 4 days? It's not $7 million, but I don't think anyone reading would be unhappy with $7,000 for 4 days of work.