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Any Advise on Property Tax Auctions?

PostPosted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 2:50 pm
by surfsteve
Does anybody know anything about buying properties through the tax auction? I've never tried it myself but sent in my deposit just before the re offer auction deadline last Friday. I've heard of people getting pretty good deals through the auction but I've also heard horror stories about people thinking they bought a building only to find out they bought an empty lot.

When I search on the auction site for properties in Trona by name none come up but I recall in the past hearing that the first few digits of the parcel number correspond to the area. Does anyone know which ones correspond to Trona, Pioneer Point and Argus? I also need to know how to figure out the address or physical location of the parcel numbers and learn the proper way to do due diligence.

It seems like this is going to be impossible, especially since the auction starts in just a few days, without somebody to mentor me through the process but I'm going to give it my best shot.

This all started when a friend of mine was buying lottery tickets and me telling him that if I'm going to take a gamble that it was going to be on something that the odds were in my favor. That night I thought about it and decided to register for the property tax re offer auction and that even though I don't know enough about it I think it's a whole lot better than my friend buying lottery tickets.

Any good advise would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Any Advise on Property Tax Auctions?

PostPosted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:11 pm
by wildbill
I saw several properties in PP, Trona, and Argus on the third set here: https://sbcounty.mytaxsale.com/
Look for APNs beginning with 0485 or 0486.

Re: Any Advise on Property Tax Auctions?

PostPosted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 6:01 pm
by surfsteve
Thanks! No matter what I did I couldn't get the links to work when I was using Firefox. Knowing that it worked for you I tried a few different things and when I switched to Chrome I was able to view everything just fine.

Re: Any Advise on Property Tax Auctions?

PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 6:30 am
by panamint_patty
The link worked without a hitch for me in Firefox. The items are in numerical order and so going down the list was pretty intuitive. Not exactly dream homes, but great deals for someone. Although I'm sure they're all fixer-uppers!

Re: Any Advise on Property Tax Auctions?

PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 7:35 am
by twister
If I had a ton of money to spend on fixing up a house, I might be interested. Too much work for me, but great deals for the right person!

Re: Any Advise on Property Tax Auctions?

PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 8:49 am
by surfsteve
I done quite a few before I came to Trona. I found out the hard way that you can't flip in Trona after not being able to sell a couple houses for what I had into it after fixing it up.

Here is one of my first flips.

https://web.archive.org/web/20020802231 ... :80/#4-1-2

I got all that fancy looking trim from Craigslist. The people that bought the house from me were also flippers. They built a 2 story garage with an addition to the house above it and put in the nicest koi pond I ever seen! After that some rich dude came in and built a huge mansion overlooking the town and everybody started buying up all the old houses and fixing them up. When I came to Trona I envisioned it as the next Wishram. The house I did after that one was my most drastic transformation but I don't have any pictures of it up on the web that I can recall. Since then I've learned just to fix them up to the point they are nice but don't put too much money into them. In between Wishram and Trona I used to travel around, buy houses, and fix them up and flip them; before I got stuck here.

Re: Any Advise on Property Tax Auctions?

PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 9:09 am
by CrustyOldFart
RENTERS IN TRONA: Typically they pay for a few months and then stop payment, forcing the landlord to go through the eviction process. After a few months of collecting no rent and paying for legal services, the renters thrash the house before finally vacating it. After going through this a few times, most people give up and decide that being a landlord is not worth it.

Re: Any Advise on Property Tax Auctions?

PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 10:14 am
by wildrose
So, does acquiring a bunch of properties in the Trona area make one a slumlord or a land baron?

Re: Any Advise on Property Tax Auctions?

PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 12:17 pm
by surfsteve
Went driving around and looked at what was up for auction. Looks like I wasted 35 dollars registering. 3 of the lots had structures but none of them had electricity running to them. Any house in Trona without utilities running to it is pretty much worthless.

Re: Any Advise on Property Tax Auctions?

PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 4:55 pm
by twister
Is it proper to refer to a female landlord and a landlord or a landlady? :rasp: