Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: For somebody who's new to this, how would you explain what a tax deed sale is and how it's different from buying just real estate like you were doing, going out and getting contracts?
[00:00:10] Speaker B: The big difference is that you don't have a title company helping you through the transaction and looking over your shoulder and looking at the title and telling you what the problems are and offering you title insurance with tax deeds. You have to buy it and what I call is you have to do rehab on the title yourself.
So you have to figure out what is going on that's wrong with the title title, how much is it going to cost to fix like you would a rehab property and then decide is it worth me buying it? Am I going to make any money off of this? And if you are, then go ahead and buy it and then go through the measures of getting that cleared up. And then when you go to sell it, you bring it to a title company and that'll pretty much almost ratify what you're doing or tell you you got some problem.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Foreign hey everybody, welcome back to another edition of Trust this, the podcast for real estate investors who are looking for asset protection and tips and tricks and tactics on how to improve their business in the state of Florida and make more money and keep it safe once you've done it. I'm Joe Siegel, the real estate asset protection lawyer here in Florida for everybody and today I have the wonderful joy of having one of the most joyous people I ever have known. Sandra Edmonds, the Queen of tax deeds are in a circle because that is registered as a trademark.
Sandra of course has been buying properties at tax deed and lien auction since 2004. I remember way back when her first tax deed cost her about $12,000 and she sold it for about $49,000 after that a couple months later and realized I'm in the wrong business. Why am I not doing this all the time?
She is now a full time real estate investor and her experience in the area of tax delinquent properties. I landed her on a front page article in the Orlando Business Journal and Seminole Woman Magazine. She's made guest appearances on live radio shows and podcasts on this topic just like ours today. She's past president of Central Florida Realty Investors Association, CFRI in 2013 and 2014 and it is one of the largest real estate investor associations and most successful successful ones in the country. I know because we're a member too.
She is also the real estate broker owner of Empire Crown Realty in Central Florida and prior to Real estate investing. Sandra, in case you can't tell, today was a television news reporter and fill in anchor at a local TV station. Welcome, Sandra. How are you today?
[00:02:55] Speaker B: I am doing great and happy to be on your podcast.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Again. Thank you for being here.
Tell us a little bit about the the what first drew you into tax deed auctions in 2004, and why do you think more investors aren't taking advantage of that today?
[00:03:13] Speaker B: Well, honestly, I kind of fell into it when I first got started.
I started wholesaling first, and I didn't even believe that I'd be successful at it. I just thought, this stuff doesn't work. It's just some hokey thing people wrote about in a book and it doesn't really work. So I was like, I'm just gonna go ahead, I'll try it, but I'll probably just end up proving this thing doesn't work. So I had just found out that they were not going to renew my contract at the TV station I was working at down in West Palm Beach. And so once they don't renew your contract, then you pretty much have to find another job.
So then I started sending out resume tapes to other TV stations and I got offers outside of the state of Florida, which, I mean, that's the normal. That's how it works in the business. You jump around until you get to larger markets. So I was fortunate to stay in Florida for, you know, probably like four or five years as I jumped around from a couple different markets like Tallahassee, Fort Myers.
And so I was like, okay, I'll just turn it down, take a chance, and then just wait for something else. But in the meantime, I had bills I had to pay, got a cell phone, had a car note at rent, you know, So I was like, I got to figure out how to make some money.
So I said, well, let me give real estate a try. I read Rich dad, poor dad book like everybody else, reluctantly, because somebody had mentioned it to me. And I was like, I don't want to read it. I know my credit's bad, and da, da, da, I don't want to know about how awful I'm doing. So one day it was just there, and I said, okay, let me just read a couple pages. I read the whole book. I loved it. Like, it took me a couple days, but I read the whole book. And one of the things he recommended was driving for dollars.
So I drove around looking for properties, and then I would write down the addresses, then go back and then get the mailing addresses. But, like I said I needed money. Like, I had bills I had to pay, so I wasn't going to send any letters off. So what I did was I went and knocked on their doors. So these were vacant houses that were, you know, distressed. So I knocked on the owner's doors. So I found their mailing address, went to their house, knocked on their door. Because when I worked for the TV station, they'd have us go knock on people's doors all the time. So I was like, I may as well do it. I'm doing this for myself. I can go knock on the door, no problem. And I presented them with contracts, with offers, you know, close in two weeks, close in three weeks, something like that.
So they all said, nope.
So I said, well, I'll just leave the contract with you and, you know, if you change your mind, let me know.
You got two days to accept it, or a day, I can't remember. And a couple of them actually got back to me and said, you know what, we changed our mind, we'll sell. And so once I did a couple deals, wholesaling, and then I started realizing a lot of these properties had delinquent taxes, and quite a few had delinquent taxes code issues, but almost all of them had delinquent taxes. So that's when I started looking into delinquent taxes and tax deeds and then got into buying properties over the counter and then buying them at the auction.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
So I remember those days. I remember when you. When you first started this, and for somebody who's new to this, how would you explain what a tax deed sale is and how it's different from buying just real estate like you were doing, going out and getting contracts?
[00:06:39] Speaker B: The big difference is that you don't have a title company helping you through the transaction and looking over your shoulder and looking at the title and telling you what the problems are and offering you title insurance with tax deeds, you have to buy it. And what I call is you have to do rehab on the title yourself.
So you have to figure out what is going on that's wrong with the title.
How much is it going to cost to fix like you would a rehab property and then decide, is it worth me buying it? Am I going to make any money off of this? And if you are, then go ahead and buy it and then go through the measures of getting that cleared up. And then when you go to sell it, you bring it to a title company, and that'll pretty much almost ratify what you're doing or tell you you got some Problems.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: So.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: So are you doing steps between then to get marketable title?
You either go through an attorney?
[00:07:34] Speaker A: That's what I was going to say, yeah. Are you doing your own title search on those?
[00:07:39] Speaker B: I do, I do. I do my own title searches for everything that I'm buying.
Like the night before the auction, I'll pull it up. It takes me about 20 minutes to an hour for each one.
So I go in the official records, do the search, see what I find.
And you know, that's funny. When I first started doing it and I met other investors that bought traditionally, not traditionally, but you know how investors buy but they weren't buying at the auction and they were like, you are crazy.
You need to have title searches done. Don't buy these without title searches. I said no, but that's how it works for the auction. So they made me doubt myself. So then I started ordering title searches from a title company at a discount because they used to do them for the county as well.
And then the guy at the title company, it was probably like maybe a month after I'd been ordering like three or four title searches a week from him. He was like, I don't know why you're bothering ordering from me because I used to submit them to the county and I know that they do have a version of this there. You just need to update it.
And so then I was like, I knew that but everybody got me scared because they were like, you shouldn't be doing these on your own.
But yeah, that's the way tax deeds do work.
You have to do them on your own or you know, you can pay for a title company or somebody to search it for you.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: Well, yeah, that's the thing I mean about tax deeds is they, they fix a lot of problems in title simply because they are a tax lien, foreclosure. They wipe out so many problems. If so long as everybody served. How did you, how did you put together your team? Because it takes a team of title companies and lawyers and everything else. How did you find the people that you were comfortable working with to, to help you do this process?
[00:09:30] Speaker B: It actually didn't take that many people. Like I have a company that I work with that helps me after I purchase it to get the title cleared and ready for title insurance. And then I have a in house assistant and a virtual assistant that helps me with doing some research admin stuff. But.
And then I go look at the properties. Sometimes I'll have other people. Depends because I know a lot of investors in different areas. So sometimes I'll call them. Hey, can you look at this for me? But pretty much make it a habit of somebody looking at it first.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: What are some of the biggest myths or misconceptions that you hear about tax deed investing and how can other people avoid those?
[00:10:18] Speaker B: A couple of them. One of them is, oh, you can't get. You can't get marketable title with a tax deed. You're just going to be throwing away your money.
That's not true. You can't get marketable title.
Some of the other myths are things that people talk about is, oh, it's just junk. There's not good properties.
There are good properties. You might come across some junk, too. But there are good properties, especially with the lands available, like the properties that are over the counter. That's where I first got started, the ones that went to the tax deed sale and then nobody bid on them.
When I first got started, a lot of people thought they were just junk and so nobody was really checking them. But there were quite a few investors that were checking them.
So I think that was my superpower in doing this, was that I always like to question assumptions. So I always am like, type, huh? Is it junk? Well, let me see. So I would go through the list and I saw really, really good ones, and I would just go after those. One of them that I looked at was just.
This was probably maybe three, two years after I first got started, a $500 vacant lot. $500, and I still didn't want to buy it. I was scared because I was like, I don't want to lose 500. But I ran the comps. The comps were 5,000, but I still didn't want to buy it because I was afraid I was going to lose 500. It just seemed too good to be true.
And so I went to a RIA meeting. It wasn't cfr. It was another RIA that was down where I lived. And a lady told me, because we were just doing networking, like, turn around, introduce yourself to somebody you never met before.
And she's like, what are you working on? I said, well, there's this vacant lot and it costs 500. I'm not willing to lose 500, but the comps are 5,000. But if it was 250, I would buy it, but not 500. I don't mind losing 250, but I'd lose. I don't want to lose 500. So she automatically took out her checkbook. This was like 2004, 2005, 2006. Ish. She took out her checkbook and she started writing me a check for 250. And she was like, we'll go on it together. If I lose my money, that's okay. And so she gave me 250. She never, I never met her before. She gave me 250 right there on the spot. So I went and bought it. I added my 250 for $500, sure enough, because I had like buyer's list because I'd been selling land.
So put it out there, sold it right away. $5,000.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: And then send her her money. And then she was like, you got anything else? There were like four of them I'd seen on the list. So I was like, yeah, but I know what to do now.
I don't need help.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: I don't need any more partner.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: I don't need any part. I figured it out. So I took my little money and bought like the other three that were on there.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: What do you find that, I mean, you are still buying land or are you getting houses or what? What are what types of properties?
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Lately I've been buying a lot of land because the houses are quite now. So I've been buying a lot of land and land is still good money, though.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: What, what trends are you seeing in tax deed investing? You say houses are getting expensive. Are you seeing.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot people, there's a lot more bidders that are bidding, especially the online auctions.
The online auctions never was a good thing. And I remember years ago, people were like, oh, when is this county going to go online? Can't wait for this county to go online. I'm like, this is not going to be a good thing when they go online because the floodgates are going to open for everybody from every part of the world.
So you have a lot more investors buying and making mistakes because they look at the opening bid and they're like, oh my God, I can buy it for this. And they rely on a Google street view or an old picture and the property may not be what it looks like, you know, so constantly I'm seeing people make mistakes like that.
What was the question? Was it about what are the trends that I'm seeing?
[00:14:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Right now things are kind of quiet because the counties are getting ready to do the certificate sales.
So it's pretty quiet right now. But I think I'm seeing a few more properties showing up on the tax delinquent list and on the tax deed auction list.
So more properties are going delinquent.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: Really?
Okay.
Are you Seeing institute, you say they open the floodgates. Are you seeing a lot of institutions, institutional investors coming into the rent?
[00:14:47] Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. A lot of hedge funds, big money in the tax deed auctions, buying up properties. They're probably making it harder to get properties and they're willing to pay more than most investors are.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Yeah, we're, we're starting on our end because we own so many properties around the state. A lot of our, not a lot, but some of our properties go into tax deed sale each year and we're seeing a lot more massive surpluses on those that we then go in and try to get the surplus us back for our beneficiaries because just it's blowing our mind at the amount of money that people are bidding on these properties for a few thousand dollars worth of taxes and they're bidding up 200,000, $300,000 on these properties.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, the problem is a lot of people from where they are, they're thinking of their market values versus the market values in the markets where they're bidding at.
So depending on where they are at home, I mean, they're, they're bidding from all over the world, all over the country. So if they're like in New York, Jersey, California, you know, places where properties are a lot more expensive, they look at our prices like what we, I can definitely buy that. That's nothing. But when you turn around and go sell it, you can't make any money because they pay too much.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: Well, and I mean, that just goes back to. Real estate's extremely local.
And I've had people who have called me that are moving, maybe moving to this area in central Florida and they're coming from dc, they're from New York, and they're like, oh my God, these houses are so cheap. These condos are so cheap. And I go, you probably still need to live here about six months to a year rent before you buy because you're thinking D.C. and New York terms. That's totally different than here. And, and then Texas is even worse because Texas you can get, oh, I've got a, you know, 15 bedroom house on 500 acres for half a million dollars. It's insane. I go, yeah, well, that's Texas. It's, it's a different world.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Definitely different.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: Do you drive out and actually look at the properties, physically inspect them when you want to see them?
[00:16:51] Speaker B: I do, I do. Within like a 2 or 3 mile radius of Orlando. So if anything's within that area, I'll do it. I tend to like the, in Person auctions better. But I do do the onlines too. But I like the in persons.
So hard to believe there are still some that are doing in person.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: It doesn't surprise me. Well, and I know that was one of the big things here in Orange county years and years ago. The, the property appraiser, tax collector. A tax collector was.
What was his name? Wood. Earl. Earl K. Wood.
100 years old. And he literally died and was re elected after he died. But he would do the in person auctions and they had a real big problem with him because toward the end he was just selling things to his friends who sat in the front row.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: So that's when they heard about that. They went. Yeah, that's when they went online because they said, well, Earl can't hear anymore, so he's given everything to his buddies right there on the front row.
Even though you have lower people.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: Yes. That's for the tax liens though. The tax collectors do the tax lien and then the clerk or the comptroller do the tax deed. But I didn't know that he got reelected after he died, like during the election happened like while. And he died during the election.
Yeah, he was like on the Valley.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: He wasn't going to run again. Yeah, Earl K. Wood. That's a, that's a real interesting story because he had been tax collector for years and one of the things that he did was he was one of the first tax collectors who said, make your tax payments to Earl K. Wood, comma, tax collector.
So it was sort of like he got free campaigning every year every time someone wrote their check to the tax collector and then. Or also for your tag, for your car, everything.
So he was always just reelected because people get to the ballot box and they're like, oh, Earl K. Wood. That sounds familiar. Sure, I'll vote for him. So he just kept getting reelected and then he wasn't going to run again.
And then his deputy jumped in and ran and he's like, wait, I don't want her to be the tax collector, so I'm going to run again.
So he jumped back in at the last minute at 98, 99 years old.
And then right before the election, he died.
So then the party, he won and then the party got to choose who the tax collector would be. And at the time, Scott Randolph was the chairman of the Democratic Party and he stepped down and was appointed as the tax collector. And he is our tax collector today.
Still in there. He does a good job. He does a good job.
Now.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: I didn't even know that. I didn't even know that little piece of fun fact there.
[00:19:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I lived through it. We were just all laughing because it's like we. We literally just elected a guy who's dead.
I mean, he had died weeks before, but he was already on the ballot. The ballots were printed. They're already out. So what could they do?
Well, now you've built a career not just as an investor, but also as a broker, real estate leader.
How has your background helped you succeed?
And what advice would you give investors who want to build a business around tax deeds? I heard you say, hey, as a reporter, I went and knocked on doors. So I just went and knocked on doors. What are some other things that you found from your past that you've been able to bring into this career?
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I encourage a lot of investors to do, is think about what are your strengths and how you can use those strengths to help you in real estate investing. So, you know, one of my strengths is talking to people.
And also, you know, I wasn't afraid to knock on doors. So I went. I would knock on doors, ask people questions. I remember a lot of times when I'm knocking on the doors. I don't knock on doors now when purchasing for the tax deed auction, but I used to do that all the time. But since 2020, I had to go knocking on people's doors because people got trigger figures and people are a little too anxious. So I don't go knock on doors. But before that, I would knock on doors and, you know, just strike up rapport and talk to people and just ask them, hey, what's going on? Why. Why aren't you paying your property taxes?
Do you plan on paying your property taxes?
So just use whatever skill sets you have in whatever niche you decide to do, whether it's tax deeds, wholesaling, making offers directly to the owners, you know, to buy and hold. Just use whatever that is to help you in real estate investing. And I'm very good at research.
So when it comes to the surplus, because I do surplus as well, but I don't, I don't do any videos on that because I don't want the people that are coming to me for surplus coming across my videos. But for the surplus, I like those because it involves research. You got to put your, you know, private. I had on to try to find where these people are and where they've gone to. You know, it's like just following these little crumbs.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's a big business, is Going after the. That surplus and helping people get those. Now, before we started, before we went on camera, one of the things we talked about, Queen of Tax Deeds, you've registered that as a trademark. I said, you know, riches are in the niches. I've said it many times on here.
And you talked about, you went from wholesaling, you got into this, and this is your niche and this is what you stick to. And we've always talked about if you really want to get rich, you find the niche and you stick to it.
But I want to talk about branding and personal branding, because Queen of Tax Deeds, I mean, you went to the trouble. You've gotten a trade trademark attorney, you've trademarked it, you've registered it with the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Why?
What is so important about personal branding for you in business in general? And. And what are some things that you've done to ensure your brand is protected?
[00:22:53] Speaker B: Well, branding is important because that's how people get to know you and know who you are.
So I someone who gave me the name Queen of Tax Deeds early on, when I started talking about buying tax deeds, and I would show up at the RIA always having these flyers, a tax deed for sale, you know, a property I got at the tax deed auction. So somebody started calling me Queen of Tax Deeds, and it kind of stuck. And I was like, okay, I like that. Queen of Tax Deeds. And I ended up getting the domain. And one day I just met a trademark attorney, and she was like, you know what? You need to trademark that name. And I was like, I thought about it. But I, you know, I got a book about it, but it seemed like so much work. But, you know, I eventually I trademarked the name, which, you know, there's a little bit of work with that because every so many years you have to do things related to the trademark.
And then I pretty much use it.
You know, I have shirts that say the Queen of Tax Deeds.
When I have an employee, I try to give them a shirt, But I've noticed men don't like wearing the Queen of Taxi shirts.
So if it's a male, like, I had a male assistant before, I had to give them a buying tax deed one because I also own the domain buyingtaxseeds.com so I give them the buying tax deed with the logo on there.
But, yeah, I trademark it. So anytime I do my videos or any written material, I say Queen Attack Seeds, and even try to have the consistent branding with the colors as well, too. So I have specific colors that I work together with a graphic designer to use as my brand colors. And so those. I save them like in my Google Drive, the number codes for the colors. So I use those across the websites, social media, pretty much anything else that I'm doing.
[00:24:38] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I. I think a lot of business folks, they don't pay attention to the personal branding. And it's, you know, it's the logo, it's the colors, it's the sound, it's the look and feel.
And to me, it's. It builds this know, what was it like? Know and trust without having to do as much work every time, you know, so while you're going knocking on doors or you're meeting new people, they already know you just by the brand. They already know that brand. Plus a brand is.
It's something that survives beyond you. So even if you're not around, you've still got this brand. Other people can be. Can be using it to trade off of your. Your brand.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. I remember I was at some class over at Aura, the local real estate board, and somebody mentioned something about, yeah, that's the queen of tax deeds. And even though I'd seen the person, like, they were like, oh, my God. Queen of tax deeds. Yeah, I've heard about you before.
So it's like, you know, kind of like, wow. They hear the name, but they may not necessarily recognize me right off the bat, or they might recognize me someplace and go, yeah, you do the tax deeds.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: Yeah. No, it's really. It's really weird whenever that happens to you out in public, and you're like, yeah, that's me.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: Yeah. But the weird thing is, I wonder. I'm like, wow, did I brand this too? Well, because sometimes people know the queen of tax seeds, but they're like, what is your name again? Sandra. Sandra Edmond. Dang it. Should I have just been sticking with my name?
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Oh, well, that's funny. Well, this being the. The. The TR podcast, and we focus on helping people aspire to a better life. So one question I always give my guests before we leave for the episode is I always ask, who is someone who has helped you aspire to a better life?
[00:26:37] Speaker B: Oh, it could be anybody.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: Anybody.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: Well, I don't want this to sound corny, but I would say, like, my mom, that's one of the reasons I got into this business. I would have never touched real estate and become a real estate investor, because I remember when I was in TV news, my photographer told me, you need to buy a house, you need to get into real estate. It's actually pretty good. And I told him, no, I don't have good credit. I'm not into that stuff. And he kept telling me, and I didn't. So when I actually started looking into tax deeds and I started reviewing all the properties that were available over the counter, I would discuss with my mom these really good deals. And one of them was where she used to have a business like, this is really nice lot there, and it's worth 4,950 thousand.
And she came one day and she's like, here, take this money. Go buy that lot you told me about. We can make money on it together and we'll split the profit. And I'm trying to talk her out of it. And I was like, no, I don't know what I'm doing. There are smart people that looked at this thing that do this all the time, and they didn't buy it. There's a reason why. It's probably sitting on this list. I don't know why, but it's probably no good. I might have made a mistake. And she was like, no, no, go buy it. Go buy it. So I was, like, scared. So I went and got a title search from a title company just to verify and a commitment. And it said everything that I thought. And even then I tried to talk her out of it. So I went and we bought it and we made a ton of money off of it. And that launched my career in real estate, something I fought the whole way about.
So sometimes you just have to trust yourself. Trust this. Right? Sometimes you just have to trust yourself and take that chance even though you're scared. Do it scared.
That's what I say. Do it scared.
[00:28:20] Speaker A: That's wonderful. That's wonderful to hear. And. And it does. It. It answers a lot of the things that I'm always telling people. Everybody's like, oh, entrepreneurs are huge risk takers. I think you are proof.
Yeah, we take risks, but they're extremely calculated risk. And we try to take every bit of risk out of the equation that we possibly can through research and investigation and education and knowledge so that. That we don't lose everything. So fear does have a place, but like you said, you gotta. You gotta work through it.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: Yeah. You see, literally, there's my vision board right behind us. You see that top word, fearless. And that's one of the things I put on there, is to be fearless.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: Wonderful. Well, Sandra, it's always great to talk to you. It's always great to have you around. You're such a light and. And breath of fresh air to have around. If anyone wants more information about Sandra, we're going to have all her contact information, all her socials, everything is down in the comments below or in the show notes. If you're if you're listening to this, pull the car over right now, click them and and go see Sandra because she is definitely the queen of tax deeds. And until next time, I want to thank everybody for listening or watching or however you're you're taking us in and and we'll catch you at our next episode. Thanks a bunch. Thanks for listening to this edition of Trust this. If you got something out of it, please press like and subscribe and give us a five star review to help us reach others who can benefit from this series. Until next time, keep aspiring to a better life.
