Dale Merkord: How Tax Lien and Deed Investing Generates Consistent Secured Returns

Welcome to the Authority Formula Podcast, the show that helps you grow your business, attract new opportunities, and leave your competition behind. I'm George Wright III, your host, partnering with Valiant CEO Magazine to bring you the world's top entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and experts. Let's dive into the strategies they use to dominate their markets and become the authority in their field. All right, welcome back to George Wright III. We've got a really good topic today. It's one that I've been familiar with for a while, and I've got a special guest, Dale Murcord. How are you doing? Pretty good. How about you? Good, good. It's good that we're able to finally get together because I want to share some topics today that you are an expert at, and we're always talking about ways that people can increase their life and their lifestyle, whether it's their mind, money body business. This is going to be one of those wealth planning type episodes. So let me give everybody an introduction for you. If you don't know Dale, he's a seasoned real estate investor. He specializes in U.S. tax liens and tax deeds. But he's the founder, one of the founders of Certainty Investment Group. It's a firm known for providing investors with 12 to 15 percent annual returns, fully secured by real estate. But he's really passionate about just simplifying the whole complex, you know, state and county tax sale process. So I'm excited to talk to him a little bit about this. Really, it's a secret, I feel, of like the high net worth that is not often shared. So Dale, could you start out by just giving us a bit of, you know, you started pursuing bank foreclosures before moving into tax liens and deeds. Give us your background and what brought you into this whole category of information. Yeah, I started out being a realtor. I've been a realtor in three states. And then also soon after I became a realtor, I got involved in investing, typically bank foreclosures, that's where I kind of started. And I remember I attended one of the many county auctions. And on the side, I noticed some guys doing a different type of sale, guys from the sheriff's department. So this was many years ago. And then I just inquired about it, and it just fascinated me. Tax sales have been going on like 200 years, and a lot of them have been doing the same way for 200 years. Yeah. And there's over 1,000 jurisdictions that do tax sales. Some of them do them every month, but some just do three or four a year. But every state does have different rules, and even every county in each state can have their own rules. and even some cities and jurisdictions do their own. So it can be quite a daunting and complicated process. Yeah, you know, I've noticed, especially over the years, talking with individuals that are trying to really expand their retirement or their portfolio and their investments, there's so many things that you just don't realize or you don't know, just like you had said, you kind of came across it. So maybe for those that are not familiar with tax liens and deeds, give us a little bit of the understanding on what that is and what the process is before we get into a lot of details about kind of what you guys do, because I think there's a lot of people that don't realize and understand what a tax lien and deed is. Yeah, tax liens and deeds are the way states and counties operate. It's what funds schools, city services, everything. It's like almost the lifeblood of counties and jurisdictions. every year go ahead yeah every year you know you every like everybody else there's property taxes to pay and some people get behind and after every state's different but after a while they just say enough is enough and they put it up for sale through auctions and and that's where you know investors such as myself and others um come in and buy either the tax liens or deeds you know Yeah, but a lot of people don't really understand that there's a lot of complexity to it, right? Because all the different states and jurisdictions are different, and also they don't understand that there is some guaranteed returns that are happening. Why is it that you can say there's guaranteed returns for these liens and deeds? Yeah, especially that's referring to the liens. Right. Tax certificates, they're also called. And every state's different. Some states offer 8%. Some states offer 14%, 15%, up to even 20% some states. And it's a mandated rate of return mandated by the state. And we do a lot of that. We also do tax deeds where you actually buy the property and get a deed to it. Because each of the, you know, different states are differently, right? So you guys have been doing this for a while and you kind of know where to go and what to do. What kind of challenges do people face when they kind of jump into this market with this type of investing? Well, it's a tedious process. The state gives you very, very little information on the property other than legal description. Other than that you got to go pretty much find out everything on your own whether regarding liens physical condition does the property even exist For instance a lot of times you can the county might provide a picture Most don't. But even if they do, you've got to go. That picture could be three or four years old. It could have come off of Google Maps or Zillow or, you know. So you have to look at every property. Otherwise, you may buy a property and it's either in very bad condition and you couldn't tell by the picture. Well, and you have a good example of this, right? Like what's an example of something people think they can kind of go get into this type of investing on their own and they don't realize the challenges that they have to navigate. Do you have an example you could kind of share of when that happened? many many but in particular there's a pretty famous story about a um a father and son team and they bought what they thought was a beautiful um expensive home in florida and they they you know at the auction they were just going by the address and sometimes the address is not the actual anyway here's what happened with them they bought a property thinking they were getting the whole house and everything else. But what they bought was a strip of land between that property and the next property. It was like just about barely enough to put a lawn chair in. In fact, they have a video of them sitting on the property they bought in a lawn chair in front of, you know, they could see the house, but they were just sitting on their little strip of land. Wow. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of times people feel like they can go just get into topics without getting some of that knowledge and experience that's already happened. And, you know, like you said, it's a complex deal. So help us understand, you know, what makes tax lien and deeds investing so much different than traditional real estate strategies in terms of opportunity and risk? Well, they can be, you know, very, very lucrative, but it's a very hands-on process. And sometimes you can get property for 10 20 cents on the dollar but it like i said you've you've got to do tons of research and due diligence prior you have to physically go look at every property uh last month was a good example the last auction i went to um there was about over they had about 150 properties about 75 i determined to be pretty possibly good targets so i did my due diligence on 75 properties and then actually went to see over 50 of them. And then you do all that work. And at the last minute, they get the people pay their taxes because they can pay up to the last minute or last day anyway. Yeah. And then they pull the property out to sale. And many, many are getting pulled prior to sale. So that's part of the process you just have to go through. You have to look at 50 to 100 properties to get one or two good deals. Yeah, it's a very tedious process from what I've heard. I've got several buddies of mine that have been investing in liens and deeds over the years. So now your company, Certainty Investment Group, it offers investors 12% to 15% returns that are guaranteed and secured by real estate. But can you kind of help us to understand, because you mentioned it a little while ago, how can you achieve those kinds of consistent safe returns with this investing? Well, like I said, tax sales can be very lucrative if it's done properly. So if you get a property at a good enough price, you can afford to pay investors 12% to 15%. You just have to be careful. Yeah, I was going to say, unlike a lot of in this particular type of investing, there's a lot of gurus and education providers and stuff out there. You guys decided not, your company decided not to just sell information. You handle all the due diligence and inspections for your investors. Why did you decide to build your business this way? And how does it kind of set it apart from what a lot of other people are doing in the industry overall? Yeah, we've always been hands-on. And right from the start, we wanted to not just – we don't teach people how to do this. We don't – there's no courses or anything we have. What we do is we – it's like a set-it-and-forget-it investment almost. We do all the necessary due diligence and physical inspections. We do it all. And they can sit back and express some investors and just make a good, attractive return. Wow, that's great. That's great. So you mentioned that, you know, a lot of times photos aren't, you know, the photos online don't always tell the full story of the property itself. You know, how do you make sure that your team gets the accurate picture before making investment decisions and with your clients? Well, first we start online and do everything we can online. And then we actually make a list and go visit the properties and take our own photos. And if we and these are you know they're not open houses or anything they're not actually on the market even these are just tax sales coming up at a possible tax possibly coming up at a tax sale so you have to find out if they if they're occupied and if so are they occupied by tenant or by the owner and if you rarely you can get in some of them but typically you have to if vacant properties you just look through windows Some of them are so bad they just wide open to people or wide open. But we just do our best to assess the condition of the property, including the roof, especially, and electric panels, things like that, and just do a preliminary estimate of repairs necessary. So you, but you, that that's what you guys do. And so obviously that kind of helps a lot. What do you see happening in the industry right now? Like, do you see, you know, things shifting any particular direction? I mean, you got a pretty good heartbeat and rhythm on the market right now. And where do you do most of your investing? We specialize in Arkansas and Mississippi and some, some in Texas. Those are the, our key markets. Have those markets changed much over the last little while? Like what's the state of the marketplace right now? In other words, I think, you know, sometimes people are wondering if the timing's right or whether or not, you know, the conditions of the market are really affecting this type of investing one way or the other. What's the latest state of the union there? Well, it's tax sales happen every year, regardless. Everybody's got their own situations. Like I said, they've been going on for 200 years. People have gotten in trouble and lost their properties for a long time. And that doesn't change much. It's a little worse in bad economies, but it's not necessarily. It just happens pretty much every year regardless. Yeah, it's interesting regardless of market conditions, right, too, because this is sort of unrelated to that as well. You know, I found that a lot of times you made the comment, set it and forget it. So what type of investors generally are investing in this type of market? Are they individuals that are just looking for a rate of return versus active real estate investing? And what are the types of individuals you generally work with? Because the reason I ask this question is there may be some individuals that really have not done any investing. They've got some retirement accounts they're trying to do things with, or maybe they're an active real estate investor. what type of person works well with this type of an investment uh most anybody really especially those with iras because you can't self-direct your ira and invest in anything so we have a lot of people that um redirect their iras with us um but a lot of people that probably don't want to have to do all the work and things like that they're you know they're like i want to be able to set and forget it it's probably uh oh yeah you guys work with right yeah this is a investing in tax sales can be a full-time job. I mean, it's not for the, it's, you know, you have to devote a lot of time to it. So most people would just, they're, you know, they're busy with their life and business or work and they just wanted an attractive return, a safe, you know, attractive return. That's where we come in. Yeah, that's great. Can you give me an example of like some deals that went really well? Like maybe you've got an example of, you know, some, some deals that you guys have done recently or whatever that went well so people can get an idea or scope of, you know, how these liens and deeds can be, can pay off in a big way. Yeah, this last week was a pretty good example. I've looked at 50 properties scattered in three different counties and went through the whole auction and finally picked up a few good deals. One of them was a commercial building, 6,000 square fee. Believe it or not, we got it for like less than $10,000. County's got it valued over 137, but it does need a fair amount of work, but still it was a great deal. Well, you guys are looking for those in particular and you've got the team in place to take care of, it sounds like. Oh yeah. Like I said, at that auction alone, I looked at over 50 properties and ended up with buying three or four. Wow. Wow. Now, do you guys, you said you don't normally, you're not, you're not outselling education, you're doing the investing, but you, do you provide some education for if somebody wanted to get started working into liens and deeds, you basically hands on, uh, you know, kind of talk them through things or is, or is it primarily just investors that you were working with that are just usually investing in the properties? Yeah. Any, any question related to investing, uh, but we don't offer, you know, how to do it yourself. We just don't want to get into that. There's plenty of guys out there that do that. But any question regarding how this work, regarding their investment with us, we answer pretty much any question. What would you say, and this is probably a real key point, what would you say are some of the common mistakes that investors make in this space when they try to get started in doing things and how can they avoid those? Oh, mainly they get all excited when they hear some of these webinars. ours. There's plenty of them out there on pack sales and they make it sound easy. And they jump in and either go to an auction or many auctions are done online nowadays. And that can be good or bad because they make it, some of the counties that do online auctions, they make it so easy to sign up and buy a property. But there's so many people that make mistakes that way. You got to do your own you got to do your due diligence and look at the properties in person Yeah it it like anything else right But especially if they online you don really have a whole lot of experience you wouldn know where to go or what to do with it. So that's a, that's a, that's a great point. So if somebody wanted to invest passively with, with your company or into, you know, I guess specifically, what's the, what's the biggest value that you provide for them? Like, what would you say is the biggest reason they should work with you guys? Well, we know what we're doing. We've been doing it quite a while. We buy properties right. Their investment's fully secured and 12 to 15% is a pretty good rate of return. And just like I said, it's set it and forget it. They can be passive investors and just enjoy a good return. And we give quarterly reports and report how things are doing, what we're doing, how the properties are doing, things like that. I love it. I love it. Cool. Well, so if people want to be able to get in touch with you, they want to connect with you, where would they do that? Like, where's the easiest way for them to connect with you? And I can certainly put all this in the show notes as well. Yeah, best way is that we have a great website. There's even some videos on it. Anyway, certaintyinvestmentgroup.com, certaintyinvestmentgroup.com. And that's the best way. And they can call me or Buddy Direct. I can give you my phone numbers. if I'll. Yeah. And I can put, in fact, I'll put all that stuff down in the show notes. And so if you're listening to this and you're like, look, I get, I get a little interested or I've been doing some things before and I don't feel like doing the work myself or you've struggled with in the real estate investing world, but you wanted to get involved with something in, in liens and deeds. I'll put those in the show notes. I'll make sure that individuals can kind of connect with you and follow you guys. You have a lot of hands-on stuff going. So that's pretty exciting for most people. and is there any tips that you would give before we you know kind of end here is there any tips that you have for someone that's interested in getting started into this arena or or or maybe they're in this arena right now because you guys are experts in this stuff what what tips or strategies would you kind of lay out for somebody that's thinking about that I would say visit our website and give us a call and we anytime we take you know we take calls all the time and do your own due diligence and look into us. And also just do a general search on tax sales and tax deeds, and that'll give them just an overall view. Basic knowledge first, yeah. Basic knowledge. Yeah. Well, I think it's like anything else. Due diligence is the key, right? So whether it's your education, information, or whether it's the actual investing itself, that's why it's good. I talked to a lot of people about the value of having mentors or masterminds, individuals that have done it, that know what they're doing and working with them because it saves a lot of – it's what I say. There's like a little bit of belief transference that happens because when someone knows what they're doing in the right market with the right strategy, with the right type of investing, it sure cuts the learning curve out. And when you're investing your money, learning curve is the last thing you really want to have to go through. So, right? Yes. Life is a complicated process and it's best to deal with the specialists because even in real estate, there's just so many different ways you can invest in real estate. But like I said, I think tax sales and deeds are a very lucrative way to do it if done right. Yeah, I agree. That's what we specialize in. Yeah, and it's interesting because it's something that's been going on for hundreds of years, and yet most people are not aware of it. But there again, I find that most of the secrets of the high net worth are not ones you learn in school. They're not ones that you just stumble across. And so that's why we wanted to be able to bring the topic up with everybody listening today. Oh, and an interesting fact is many people don't know this, but many of your hedge funds and large banks, Kidder Peabody, just all your big banks, Bank of America, they invest in tax liens. Yeah, that's right, because it's a guaranteed return. I mean, think about it. It's like you're going to have something guaranteed by the government, secured by collateral, all these things. There's just a lot of safety measures, I think, there, which is why those guys are going to do that. Right. That's right. And they invest millions, millions at a time doing that. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Well, cool. Well, I hope, you know, if you're listening to this episode, I hope you learned a little something. But more than anything else, I hope you'll jump in and, you know, check these guys out, see what you can do to, you know, take advantage of opportunities that they might have or information, education they have because they've got a blog on their site. They've got a bunch of things that you can go to to reference. But more than anything else, like I say on all of our podcasts, it's never too late to start living the life you're meant to live and doing the things you want to do. So if you've thought about investing, you want to grow your wealth, tax liens and deeds is definitely something for you to check out. And I look forward to talking with you more. So hit us up, make sure that we know whether or not you have any questions, what you're up to, what you're winning at. And we look forward to talking with you again next week. Have an amazing day. you