2025 Prince George's County MD Tax Sale Recap

[Kareem Aaron]

Today I participated in my first tax lien auction in PG County, Maryland.

It took weeks of prep work to....

 - aggregate information from various public sources

 - define my criteria and perform data analysis

- review last year's tax sale results to get a ballpark of where I need to be with my bids

- drive to each target property to see the condition

- and etc. 

I was ready and excited to jump in. There were 3 batches and I placed bids in all of them.

I waited patiently for the results of each round only to get let down b/c I didn't win a single lien.

My 2025 post sale analysis (see below) shows that bidders are bidding so high that the bid premium is eating away at the interest rate.

What could be 20% interest is turning out to be mostly 2-6%.

You can get better returns from the stock market.... Heck, you may be able to get better returns from CDs at some banks!

So this is my question... why would anyone want to go through such an ordeal for such minuscule returns?

Why would the top 10 bidders invest millions of dollars for just 3%, 4%, and 5% interest? Couldn't they get a better ROI elsewhere?

I wanted just 12-15% returns, but I didn't even stand a chance.

Effective Interest Rate when including Bid Premiums

Effective Interest Rate	# of Parcels
<0	147
0-0.01	27
0.01-0.02	94
0.02-0.03	252
0.03-0.04	592
0.04-0.05	613
0.05-0.06	247
0.06-0.07	81
0.07-0.08	44
0.08-0.09	56
0.09-0.1	43
0.1-0.11	28
0.11-0.12	10
0.12-0.13	16
0.13-0.14	10
0.14-0.15	12
0.15-0.16	7
0.16-0.17	12
0.17-0.18	17
0.18-0.19	10
0.19-0.2	261
Grand Total	2,579

Top 10 Bidders

Bidder Id	# of Parcels	Total Cost	Average Interest Rate
339	475	$ 11,356,743.79	5%
340	483	$ 5,091,556.81	5%
807	104	$ 5,039,338.98	7%
900	193	$ 4,850,247.31	4%
609	430	$ 4,734,374.50	4%
918	115	$ 3,873,364.51	3%
890	112	$ 3,105,298.64	4%
911	125	$ 3,065,210.49	3%
727	85	$ 1,665,088.82	7%
954	50	$ 1,526,072.12	11%

-Kareem

[Russell Brazil]

Quote from @Kareem Aaron:

Today I participated in my first tax lien auction in PG County, Maryland.

It took weeks of prep work to....

 - aggregate information from various public sources

 - define my criteria and perform data analysis

- review last year's tax sale results to get a ballpark of where I need to be with my bids

- drive to each target property to see the condition

- and etc. 

I was ready and excited to jump in. There were 3 batches and I placed bids in all of them.

I waited patiently for the results of each round only to get let down b/c I didn't win a single lien.

My 2025 post sale analysis (see below) shows that bidders are bidding so high that the bid premium is eating away at the interest rate.

What could be 20% interest is turning out to be mostly 2-6%.

You can get better returns from the stock market.... Heck, you may be able to get better returns from CDs at some banks!

So this is my question... why would anyone want to go through such an ordeal for such minuscule returns?

Why would the top 10 bidders invest millions of dollars for just 3%, 4%, and 5% interest? Couldn't they get a better ROI elsewhere?

I wanted just 12-15% returns, but I didn't even stand a chance.

Effective Interest Rate when including Bid Premiums

Effective Interest Rate	# of Parcels
<0	147
0-0.01	27
0.01-0.02	94
0.02-0.03	252
0.03-0.04	592
0.04-0.05	613
0.05-0.06	247
0.06-0.07	81
0.07-0.08	44
0.08-0.09	56
0.09-0.1	43
0.1-0.11	28
0.11-0.12	10
0.12-0.13	16
0.13-0.14	10
0.14-0.15	12
0.15-0.16	7
0.16-0.17	12
0.17-0.18	17
0.18-0.19	10
0.19-0.2	261
Grand Total	2,579

Top 10 Bidders

Bidder Id	# of Parcels	Total Cost	Average Interest Rate
339	475	$ 11,356,743.79	5%
340	483	$ 5,091,556.81	5%
807	104	$ 5,039,338.98	7%
900	193	$ 4,850,247.31	4%
609	430	$ 4,734,374.50	4%
918	115	$ 3,873,364.51	3%
890	112	$ 3,105,298.64	4%
911	125	$ 3,065,210.49	3%
727	85	$ 1,665,088.82	7%
954	50	$ 1,526,072.12	11%

-Kareem

 They're not bidding for the interest rate. They're bidding for the potential to eventually foreclose on the property. And the people winning those bids, sometimes even at negative interest rates are buying hundreds, if not thousands of these liens.