Super Tuesday
I finally found a website that actually has the numbers on the lien sale sheet correlating to a specific property.  The property taxes owed/paid on it for each year going way back, what kind of property it is, etc.  It was shortly before I had to leave for the auction this morning that I found that site, I did as much looking as I could, including looking at satellite view.  But I had no determination that I was going to bid on anything today, and alas, I did not. 

That's because now that I have a basic premise on how to find info on these properties, I still need to find out how to find the actually address?  The satellite image shows the street and the name of the street, but there are no property addresses on any of the tax info online.  There are other things I want to learn how to find out as well, such as any mechanics liens or other types of liens from the city/county for demolishing old buildings or cleaning up lots.  I wouldn't care about paying for that stuff - if it didn't add an extraordinary amount to the total price of acquiring the property. 

Going to the courthouse, there was a long line of people waiting to sign in for the auction.  By the time everyone had signed in, there was at least 150 people standing there. Note that this auction is hel outdoors and tho the auctioneer does their thing under a canopy, most of us were standing outside, in the light rain.  It became obvious to me, looking at the way some of the people were dressed, that there were people there with money and I wasn't wrong in that assertion after the bidding began.

4 people repeatedly bidding on various properties - most of them larger portions of acreage.  One property listed as 33 acres was bid up to 95 thousand. Seemed rather high to me, but I looked at it when I got home. It is entirely forested, the properties around it have been cut down. I don't know what 33 acres of trees are worth, but probably enough to pay a good piece of that purchase price. 

There was a house for sale that I would have bid on, but they went up more money than I had.  Started out at 2k, went up to 17k before someone finally won that one. There are small, less than an acre properties I could have bid on and won - no one else was bidding on them - but I don't need a small piece of property for anything and I don't see how I could sell it.  The only thing that could be done with it is dump a mobile home on it and rent it.  But I don't know if the city even allows that, I doubt it does.  Many properties just didn't get any bids.  The one I was interested in had been pulled from the auction, presumably the owner paid up the taxes.

The learning experience here? Have enough money to pay at least a grand an acre, and many of them even 2 grand an acre.  It's a good deal for acreage, I just didn't have that much money to throw out right now.  And learn how to do more research. 

Some of this could actually be a money making proposition, especially lots with houses on them. But, one would have to be able to at least take a street view of the house first and assert that the thing is livable without too much renovation.  Roof caving in? No thanks.  Windows boarded up? No thanks again. Plenty of that around these parts, the city doesn't force homeowners to fix or even take down any of that stuff.  Many worthless homes around here, just literally falling apart, especially with roofs caving in from deterioration.

After an hour and a half of that - and knowing that I wasn't going to be bidding on anything after all the good stuff was gone - I got out of the rain, into a Mexican food restaurant for lunch, over to Maria's to drop off some food she asked me to pick up, over to the Civic Center to vote - Republican of course.

"Texas should support the construction of a physical barrier and use existing defense-grade surveillance equipment along the entire southern border of Texas."

Not sure what the point of that is.  It doesn't say Texas should build the wall, just that it should support building one.  Seems like a waste of space on the ballot to me.  I support the wall but this thing here - accomplishes nothing that I can see. 

Texas should ban chemical castration, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and genital mutilation surgery on all minor children for transition purposes, given that Texas children as young as three (3) are being transitioned from their biological sex to the opposite sex.

Yes, yes and yes!!!

Anyway, done with that, over to the store, dinner fixings, got a run for tomorrow - another near worthless Baker run, seems to be all I'm getting and my paychecks are showing it, expecting that WV run - So study time today.  I'm going to read all of the rest of that material for the RR certification today. And then go through it again whenever my next chance is.  I need to get that card, my paychecks are suffering horribly with all of these shutdown and loss of contracts. 

And my goal of getting any property even at a tax lien sale is really on hold.  There is no way to sve up any money when I'm not getting the good paychecks.  An $800 gross paycheck is not a good paycheck.  That's what I'll have next week, which amounts to around $450 net pay.  So, priorities are get the money flowing back in, save some of it for one of these tax sales, get some property.  A rental property would be good as much as a property to use for building a home on. 

Enough. Off to study land. 

Oklahoma trip over. Dude at the plant up there complaining about a broken internal valve in one of the trailers we bring up there. Admitted they knew about it but haven't told us.  So how in the bleep are we supposed to know if it's broken if you don't tell us? Wait until you are sufficiently upset about it that you let loose?

An easy fix, too. It's just a cable that pulls a lever down that pulls a rod up that opens the valve . They get replaced frequently, they're old trailers.  New trailers are all operated either by air pressure or handles, there are no cables in them at all. But, you know, those new trailers, I was told today, aren't the 500k I thought they were,; they are more like 750k for each one.  That's a LOT of money for ONE single trailer!

No one at the yard, I went and had lunch at Applebee's on the way home.  I got called out yesterday morning early.  The person I was asked to take their spot in loading's vehicle was broken down.  I dropped everything - was preparing to make breakfast - left in a hurry and didn't get to eat anything but pork rinds until around 7:30 pm last night.  I had a hamburger at that point in Okmulgee, OK.

Anyway, I got back to my town and went straight to the court house. The first place had no clue. They sent me to another place a mile away - whatever they thought was there? - wasn't, it was an old, junky mechanics shop.  Back to the court house and sent to the right place.  OH, yes, they said on floor two while a huge number of what must of been jurors filed out of a court room and flooded the bathrooms - literally flooded them btw.

The lady at the counter of the office I went into pointed at the back - you can go help yourself.  Help myself to what? I'm thinking, there is row after row after row of files, hundreds of thousands of them.  I didn't ask her, I didn't want to look like the amateur I am and have them send me packing.  They didn't ask any credentials.  There must be a system, I thought, correlated to some of these endless numbers on each tract that is for sale on the auction pamphlet.  I figured it out quickly, a little guess work included, and started looking into the properties.

Good thing I looked. Many of these properties have huge school district tax liens that are not - apparently - a part of the judgment against the property.  There were all kinds of different numbers, I got lost attempting to figure out how they came up with sale price.  I have more learning to do - meaning more research.  But the way the paperwork made it work, there was the tax lien and then there were - in many cases - thousands and thousands of additional dollars worth of school taxes to be paid.  Didn't make sense to me - property taxes mostly go to pay school taxes?  But I decided that I would only think about bidding on properties tomorrow that didn't have all of that listed in there.  Which narrowed all of those properties down to 2.  I bypassed all properties that belonged to developers - there would be a reason they were delinquent and probably not a good reason.

I need to learn how to do all of the research. There is yet another place you have to go for even more information on any liens or judgments against any given property.  Give me time, I'll learn.  And once I learn, I will be buying properties and attempting to resell them at profit. One at a time, probably. At least at first.  I need to earn retirement money, working is fine but it's way too far off in the future - much longer than i want to have to work - before employment earnings will actually pay for retirement coupled with SS.

But I am going to go tomorrow.  If I don't get anything, that's fine.  I want to see if I can find anyone that is knowledgeable that is open to giving out "free information".

Wow. The 20 acres being auctioned tomorrow is a small ranch. It has barns and covered fixtures. There is a small mobile home on it. It has fencing all around it.  That places will probably get bid up pretty good. That's the one I was interested in, but after seeing it I can't imagine a starting bid at 2 grand staying there and going to final bidder.  It's listed at 107k property value for taxes - which is always less than what a property is worth.  Satellite view - most trees gone on the property.  A couple of ponds.  All green. Would be good for cattle.  Not a lot of cattle at 20 acres but good enough for a person interested in dipping their feet into it.  The property is definitely worth far more than the listed price, that's a fact.