2015 Los Angeles Tax Auction Details

Tax Liens & Mortgage Notes
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2015 Los Angeles Tax Auction Details

Joshua McGinnis
Rental Property Investor · Beverly Hills, CA · Member since 2014 · 472 posts · 272 votes

Los Angeles County has just published this year's tax lien auction details. It's the first year that I've seen the auction take place online, as opposed to the last few years which have been at the county fairgrounds. 

Here's a link to the list of APN's up for auction: **********

Here's the cities information on buying tax default properties:
https://ttc.lacounty.gov/default.htm

Starts: August 8, 2015 at 6:00 PM ET 3:00 PM PT)
Ends: August 11, 2015 *

I'd be curious to hear any thoughts on how to analyze the list of properties and your strategy for acquiring a great deal.

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Jay HinrichsBusiness Member
Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
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@Joshua McGinnis  one technique is to go hard on the first one's that come up that your interested in.. the last one's to sell get bid up as those that were nervous to start get antsy and bid up the last one's far to much... this is how we always did it...

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  • Josh Prince
    Investor · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2010 · 116 posts · 36 votes
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    About five or six years ago I was interested in this. I purchased the book of all parcels, went through by zip code and identified the ones I was interested in (over 100) and watched as the auction date approached and they were all satisfied and taken off the auction list by the time the auction happened. 

    That was enough to discourage me from moving forward in future years.  What I observed was that any asset that was even remotely manageable (i.e., in a civilized area and had improvements or was easily improvable) was taken off the list.  Meaning that the owner satisfied the lien or that another potential buyer approached the current owner and took the property subject to the lien and then satisfied it.  The stuff that sold at auction was primarily undeveloped land in unpleasant or rural areas.

    I would imagine in this current market, there are even more people looking to buy at tax sales than in 2009 and so I would be interested to hear if anyone has encountered success and found hidden gems this way.

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  • Joseph M.
    Flipper/Rehabber · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2009 · 1k+ posts · 732 votes
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    Thanks for posting this. I have bid and won some auctions on property..but it was not in LA county but some other surrounding areas. I did purchase some cheap lots that were resold..but of course there are more challenges and less demand for land...especially for land that isn't in the middle city.. 

    I'm thinking that there will be even more competition since people will be able to bid online rather than have to go to a certain venue. 

    I found the same thing that Josh mentioned with properties being struck off the list. 

    I do plan to take a look at the list though and see if there is anything interesting on there. 

    Have you bought properties for L.A County tax auction sales in the past? 

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  • Joshua McGinnis
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    Rental Property Investor · Beverly Hills, CA · Member since 2014 · 472 posts · 272 votes
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    I've never purchased anything at the auction, but I did send my wife in my place two years ago and she said it was pretty crazy. The parcels we were looking at were selling way over market price.

    I think the strategy is to pear down the list to the parcels you care about and then keep your list updated with those stricken off from the auction so that by the last day, you have a pretty good idea of what you can and want to bid on vs what you can't and don't.

    I'm interested the land opportunities but most of the land available is either not build-able or land-locked from what I've checked so far.

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  • Logan AllecBusiness Member
    Accountant · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 980 votes
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    Hi @Joshua McGinnis did you end up picking anything up at the auction?  There is another one in October.  I've been reading about these folks on BP buying properties cheap at tax auction, fixing up/making additions, and renting out, recovering all their cash invested within 2-3 years.  Pretty incredible.  But I think competition may be a little more fierce in LA than in, say, some rural county in the Midwest.

    https://ttc.lacounty.gov/proptax/auction_info.htm

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  • Joshua McGinnis
    OP
    Rental Property Investor · Beverly Hills, CA · Member since 2014 · 472 posts · 272 votes
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    @Logan Allec

    I didn't end up participating this time around. Are you thinking about participating?

    I wonder if there's a way I could leverage from software dev skills to help analyze the parcel list and refine prospective parcels? If someone wants to share their opinions on ways to narrow down / categorize / filter the parcel list using public data sources, I'd be happy to share my thoughts on the technical feasibility.

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  • Jay HinrichsBusiness Member
    Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
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    @Joshua McGinnis  one technique is to go hard on the first one's that come up that your interested in.. the last one's to sell get bid up as those that were nervous to start get antsy and bid up the last one's far to much... this is how we always did it...

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    WebsiteView Page
    1Reply
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