That sound was my giant sigh of relief!
So, I've been investing in tax lien certificates in Florida for 3 years with a business partner through an LLC. We had given up the hopes of actually getting a property as everything either paid off before getting to auction or on the few that made it to auction, they were bid up beyond what we'd be willing to pay. I had some money set aside for my 5 year old daughter and decided last year that 0.5% interest in an online savings account didn't make much sense when I was making 16% or so in tax lien certificates. So I matched the money owed to her with my own money and bought some tax lien certs last May - one which was already seasoned so I paid the other outstanding taxes and county fees to apply for the tax deed.
This June, I received the notice from county clerk's office that the property would be in the August tax deed sale. So I paid the additional fees (recording, publication, serving notice, etc.), assuming that the taxes would get paid.
In July I get a copy of the notice served with the publication listing the sale.
In August, I start to call the county to see if the property is still scheduled for the auction and hasn't been redeemed. I do this right up to the day before and morning of the auction. Sure enough, it hadn't been redeemed. So I'm headed out of the house and grab some money in case I want to bid at the auction. On the way to the courthouse, I drive by the mobile home (with a deed lot) and notice that someone is living there. Oh no I think, I know this is owned by an investor with multiple rental properties, he must have a tenant in this one. With that I decided I wouldn't bid at the auction and just take my 18% interest. Going once.....going twice....going three times.....struck to ME! I always thought I'd be doing cartwheels around the courthouse if this ever happened. Based on the condition of the property and the fact that there is a tenant in it, I dropped my head and shook it back and forth in disbelief. I talk to another guy at the auction that I've seen before and ask him about the property. He said "that piece of junk....I drove buy and there was a big scary looking guy walking around." Great! Just what I wanted to hear.
Turns out he was a nice enough guy and the old owner had him move in to fix the place up. I'm guessing he wanted to sell it before the auction. The tenant stayed an extra month but then moved out as agreed. I could have gotten a writ of assistance from the court to remove him, but with the cost and the fact that it would take about as much time as he asked for, I thought I'd roll the dice and it paid off. I did help him with his deposit on his new place and he said to call him in a month to see how much he could give me back.
54 days after the auction, I finally sold the property today! This is a very low value property and I didn't have much in it, but instead of making 0.5% interest for my daughter in a savings account, I made her 67%. I could have sold it faster and for a higher asking price if I didn't hold a tax deed and I opted not to do a quiet title action on this property. With the price point, I might have broken even on the quiet title fees, but there was no guarantee of that and I would have had to hold onto it for a longer period of time. Not doing the quiet title definitely made it a harder property to sell. I kept lowering the price on Craigslist, Zillow and Postlets until it hit a point that I was getting a lot of calls and people wanting to see it. After the first couple of weeks, I also added the title situation to the advertisements to weed people out who would have no interest in buying a property this way.
Sorry for the long story, but that's about how long my sigh of relief was!