HELP??!! FTP file for Tax Delinquent list - ID10T error alert
Hello BP,
So I am looking to get into the tax delinquent arena here in Denton county, Texas. I've read about the monthly live auctions, but I really wanted to get ahead of that list and try to market to the homeowners before it gets to the point of a sale. I courageously called the county, they told me they have attorneys who begin the collection efforts. I called the attorney she provided who told me they get sent the list from the county. I called the county back and told them I want a copy of the list - Sure she says, just send us an email and we'll send it to you. SWEET!!! All smiles I wait for the email.
The email comes almost immediately after I send my request. It comes with instructions that give me an FTP site, a username, a password, and mentions a programmer. I have IT people in my family, so after the first couple of hours of me trying to figure it out on my own (the instructions told me to use FileZilla, but when I went to do that, I got a security alert and when I googled the safety of FileZilla I didn't feel all that safe). So I searched for alternatives even coming across an option with FireFox - which of course no longer exists.
I reached out to the fam like hey what am I supposed to do. After looking into it, my bro (IT guy) said he'd have to call me because 'the way they did this is just stupid' - haven't received that call yet; my husband (IT guy) attempted to use a different FTP client to send the files to me ... didn't really work out that way, they are still coming up with .DAT extensions; my aunt (a programmer) said the county needs to tell me what software they used to create the file to figure out what is needed to open the .DAT files. I've emailed the county and will look forward to their response tomorrow, however if there is anyone on BP that has already done this, I'd really appreciate the understandable instructions. I'm even willing to pay to get these files, but the only person on Fiverr that came up had only a 1 rating.
To further explain: I received an FTP site -> go to that site and get a directory/index of folders -> I click on the folder for the delinquent properties and get a list of zip files -> click on the file it opens in File explorer to extract -> I click extract and get these .DAT files. Opening up the .DAT with Notepad/Wordpad gives me mostly gibberish, I can make out some addresses and names but the format is all over the place and there are alot of 0's (which my aunt told me is some binary code).
SO... IF ANYONE has been through this and can PLEASE tell me who to call or what to use to get these files to a format that I can manipulate into a Word or Excel file I would be extremely grateful and I don't mind giving up some of these names if you want in on this arena.
HELP PLEASE! :)
TIA,
Erin
@Erin Elam A .DAT file is by definition, a non standard file format.
It might be posible that the file matches the more standard definition of a ,CSV file or that of a .txt file.
My suggestion would be to rename the file so that it ends en .CSV and try to open it with Excel. If that does not work, rename it to end in .TXT and try to read it with notepad.
If all that fails, or to get extremely delinquent tax lists, you can try https://investum-data.com
Just FYI, FileZilla is a well know open-source free program that is widely used and highly rated. As long as you download it from a safe site e.g. SourceForge you should be good to use it.
Originally posted by @Neil Narayan:Just FYI, FileZilla is a well know open-source free program that is widely used and highly rated. As long as you download it from a safe site e.g. SourceForge you should be good to use it.
Thanks Neil, SourceForge was exactly the complaint I kept seeing in reviews. The reviews say SourceForge also installs malware and spyware when Filezilla is downloaded.
Originally posted by @Ed Tamayo:@Erin Elam A .DAT file is by definition, a non standard file format.
It might be posible that the file matches the more standard definition of a ,CSV file or that of a .txt file.
My suggestion would be to rename the file so that it ends en .CSV and try to open it with Excel. If that does not work, rename it to end in .TXT and try to read it with notepad.
If all that fails, or to get extremely delinquent tax lists, you can try https://investum-data.com
Thanks Ed for that information. My issue was that when I tried to rename in my file explorer, 'rename' was not even an option - it was grayed out. The county responded and said they created the files with Filezilla. I thought Filezilla was just a pass-through option from computers where files created using various programs could be uploaded - does Filezilla actually create files?
I'll take a look at the link you provided as well - thank you.
@Erin Elam I have never had any issues with SourceForge but you can also download directly from FileZilla
https://filezilla-project.org/download.php
Did you ever figure it out? If so, can you explain to me on how you did it? Thank you!
I know this is a really old thread, but I ran into this exact issue with Collin County tax delinquent list recently. You can't just change it to a csv file since there are no delimiters in the file other than white spaces. I ended up creating a powershell script that can convert the file to an actual csv with a special character as the delimiter, which can then be imported into excel. It's not perfect as some rows have missing data so the columns don't line up perfectly, but it's a lot better readable format than the DAT file. If anyone still has this issue, shoot me a message and I'll be more than happy to convert it.
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Just FYI....not to say there's not opportunity there, but Denton and Collin have virtually nothing that actually goes to sale. Some, but very very few.....might be better counties to attack like Dallas county. I guess when you think about these two counties....lots of new or newer construction....most of that will have loans on it, loans typically make owner escrow taxes and either way the taxes end up getting paid from escrow or lender pays it, even it owner doesnt. Most of what goes to tax sale is older homes or lots that have been paid off long ago and for some reason owner can't or family stops paying taxes....so that's what is left....but not that many of those in these counties.
Quote from @Bruce Lynn:
Just FYI....not to say there's not opportunity there, but Denton and Collin have virtually nothing that actually goes to sale. Some, but very very few.....might be better counties to attack like Dallas county. I guess when you think about these two counties....lots of new or newer construction....most of that will have loans on it, loans typically make owner escrow taxes and either way the taxes end up getting paid from escrow or lender pays it, even it owner doesnt. Most of what goes to tax sale is older homes or lots that have been paid off long ago and for some reason owner can't or family stops paying taxes....so that's what is left....but not that many of those in these counties.
Adding to your comments. I've followed Anderson, Freestone and Bell county auctions. The majority of the properties that hit the auction are real junk. Abandoned houses with roofs falling in. Frequently the owner has passed away and nobody takes care of the place. They sit 2-3 years before hitting the auction.
The pattern I see with the better properties is they will be withdrawn the night before the auction. The owner will come up with a couple hundred bucks and get the property pulled off the list on the 11th hour. The same property will be back on the next auction list next month. I've seen the same property hit three consecutive auctions and never sale.
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@Pete Harper I agree with you....there are gems, but there are plenty of junk too.
Sometimes I wonder if there is a market for distressed lumber, that you could conquer with all the caved in homes.
Be prepared to screen through a whole lot of junk. Before bidding I would do a drive by inspection. You would be amazed how many homes have been torn down leaving a vacant lot. Next you will find many more that are in total disrepair; roofs falling in, broken windows, water damaged, fire damage etc. I started screening on Zillow or Google Streetview to save driving around. I'd go from a list of 20-30 properties on the auction list down to 2-3. The better properties always come off the list at the 11th hour. I asked the sheriff and was told they made a small payment. You'll frequently see the same property in the next auction only to repeat the process.
This was a whole lot of work for little return so I decided to send letters like the original poster. Out of two auctions I received one response. Daughter of the couple who owned the home. She was wanting stuff out of the house. I drove by to inspect and found the roof over the kitchen caved in. Hard Pass.
In the larger markets you will find professional flippers. We found a nice property listed at $125,000. The owners had passed away. ARV was $250,000. Bidding started with me and two flippers. They blasted through $150,000 in a couple bids. Too rich for me. I ended up going for low retail. One major plumbing or AC problem with the home and these guys were under water. Risky business.