Free education · Ross Budrakey
Winning With Tax Liens
Learn the strategy. Understand the risks. Know what to do next.
Free practical education for people who want to understand how tax lien and tax deed investing actually works — including the parts that are hard.
The path
Learn → Research → Fund → Acquire → Liquidate
Five stages, in order. Skipping one is the most reliable way to lose money in this business.
Learn
Understand the instrument before you touch it.
What tax liens and tax deeds actually are, why counties sell them, how redemption works, and the vocabulary you need before you read a single auction list.
Research
Due diligence is the job.
State law, county procedure, auction lists, legal descriptions, property values, inspections, cost stacking, and setting a maximum bid before you ever raise your hand.
Fund
Your lender may already be in your phone.
How to think clearly about capital, and how to communicate an opportunity to people who already know you, know the market, or understand the strategy.
Acquire
Bid the number you wrote down.
Auction formats, bidding discipline, what a certificate actually buys you, redemption, foreclosure, deeds, and the work that begins the moment you win.
Liquidate
Know your exit before you buy.
Selling, improving and selling, renting, holding, or another appropriate exit. Acquiring the asset is only half the job — turning it back into money is the other half.
The education costs nothing.
No course funnel, no upsell ladder. If you acquire a property and want help turning it into cash, that's when we talk.
The honest version
Where most new tax lien investors get stuck.
Almost everyone follows the same arc. Knowing what's coming is the difference between quitting at the third wall and working through it.
- 01
The spark
You hear that counties sell delinquent tax debt and sometimes the property itself. It sounds like a part of the market almost nobody is paying attention to. That excitement is real, and it's justified.
- 02
The first wall: which state?
Every state writes its own statutes. Lien states, deed states, hybrids. Different redemption periods, different bidding formats, different notice requirements. There is no single correct answer, and picking one means committing to learning it properly.
- 03
The second wall: the county
Even inside one state, the treasurer in one county runs the sale differently from the next. Registration, deposits, payment windows, where the list is published, whether the sale is online or on the courthouse steps.
- 04
The third wall: the list
You finally get an auction list. It's parcel numbers, legal descriptions and dollar amounts — not addresses and photos. Decoding it into actual places on a map is genuine work.
- 05
The fourth wall: the volume
You research property after property to find a handful worth considering. Most are eliminated. That ratio is normal, and it's the part people don't expect.
- 06
The fifth wall: the physical world
Values have to be determined. Properties have to be looked at — by you, or by someone local you trust. Some auctions still require you to be in the room.
- 07
The sixth wall: capital and nerve
Money has to be arranged and available on the county's schedule. Then you have to bid without emotion and stop at the number you calculated.
- 08
The wall nobody warns you about
You win. Now you own a real thing in a real place, and it doesn't turn into money on its own. This is where most new investors freeze — and it's exactly where this site spends the most time.
Why due diligence matters
The auction is five minutes. The research is the business.
A parcel number is not a property. A photo is not an inspection. An assessed value is not a market value. Every expensive mistake in this business traces back to a question someone chose not to answer before they bid.
Research means understanding the state's law and the county's procedure, obtaining the auction list, decoding legal descriptions, valuing the property in its current condition, getting eyes on it, stacking every cost — and only then writing down a maximum bid.
Exit first
Acquiring an asset is only half the job.
Before you bid, you should already know how you intend to turn the property back into money: sell it as-is, improve it and sell it, rent it, hold it, or another exit that fits the asset and the market.
Your maximum bid is derived from that exit. Without one, you aren't investing — you're buying a liability with a redemption date attached.
About
Ross Budrakey
Ross is an experienced real estate investor and educator. He has traveled the United States teaching tax lien and tax deed investing, and he wrote the tax lien chapter in the international bestselling book The Real Estate Candy Shop.
He teaches this as what it is: a process business built on public records, county procedure and disciplined arithmetic. No income claims, no invented statutes, no pressure — just the work, explained plainly.
Exit strategy help
Acquired a property — or nearly there?
If you've won a property at a tax sale, or you're close and the exit question just became real, tell Ross about it. This form is for evaluating and executing an exit or liquidation strategy — it is not a funding request line.