All Forum Posts by: Kraig Kujawa

@John Matthew Johnston.  I'm sure every city will be different. In Memphis I troll Craigslist looking for homes for sale that have been put in the wrong category. I've bought some of my best deals this way.

I cultivate relationships with title attorneys, accountants, property managers, bank managers and make sure they know I am always looking for homes where the owner/landlord wants out but doesn't want to advertise and doesn't want to disturb the tenants.

I also find a lot of good deals by looking through FSBO sites.

In other words I avoid the MLS and realtors pretty much completely and I don't look for houses needing rehabbing. The other thing that works well for me in Memphis is buying using seller financing. There is a lot fo old money in memphis so elderly people downsizing or moving often don't need the money but they are very price proud about their house. So I buy them at asking price if they leave the money in at 1% over cash deposit rate. I have bought some gorgeous homes in East Memphis this way. With the low interest rate they cashflow just like a normal rental!

There are more channels I have used but I'm semi retired these days!!

@Patrick V. Home Solution Title, Inc. 4406 Florida Ave S #27, Lakeland, FL 33813

I have used them often for various investor transactions

@Jeff Manning At the county level, consider going to the source for this information which is the local courthouse clerk of courts where these records are stored.  Some courthouses have these records available online.  When a lien is brought up for legal proceedings, often the records are retrieved from the local county courthouse.  

When conducting title searches online, these companies are accessing the local courthouse records and offering them to the public.  However, the age and thus accuracy of these records offered by third parties online should always be questioned since their data is copied from the source.

Finally, there is another type of lien record which is not available at the county courthouse nor is it available online!  In fact this lien supersedes even tax sale liens and must be paid or negotiated!  The lien is an IRS tax lien!  You have to give the IRS due process notice of your tax lien purchase to start to insulate yourself from any possible issues.

What county and state are you in.  That will help people give you more specific and helpful answers.

General answer is that you need to be able to look these up yourself.  You might start at the county courthouse and ask the clerks to help you do one, then you do the rest yourself.   You may also be able to find out from them who the online providers are, if there are in for that county.   Then figure out if the online services are worth it.

You might also try discussing with a title company to do the work for you.   What I have found though is they are too slow and too expensive to do too many lien searches and sometimes not all that skilled in helping you figure out areas of concern on a property you don't own.

You might check out a site like https://www.titlesearchdirect.com/ and see if that helps.