165. The Most Innovative Tax Deed Strategies in 2024

Summary

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Episode Overview

Title: The Most Innovative Tax Deed Strategies in 2024
Host: Joe Jensen (Real Estate Investing School)
Guest: Joseph Griffin ("The Tax Deed Wolf")
Date: June 10, 2024
Episode Number: 165

This episode dives deep into the world of tax deed investing—a niche, often overlooked avenue within real estate. Joe Jensen interviews Joseph Griffin, a celebrated investor, author, and educator known for his expertise in tax deeds and creative strategies. Together, they reveal how tax deed investing works, why it's accessible in 2024, the creative ways to seize these opportunities nationwide, and actionable steps for beginners.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Joseph Griffin’s Origin Story

• Military and Real Estate Beginnings
  • Joined Army National Guard at 17; nursing career as ICU manager by age 29.
  • First exposure to tax deed investing was in Afghanistan; initially skeptical, thinking it “sounds like a scam” ([03:20]).
  • Purchased first home at age 21 via VA loan—$78,000 in Florida, zero down, now worth over $300k ([03:17], [03:35]).
  • Explored tax sale properties years later, acquiring two in one month: one for $3,000, another for $1,900—“In 30 days, less than $6,000, I had three properties” ([04:37]).

2. Understanding Tax Deed Investing

• Explaining the Niche ([10:29]-[13:00])
  • Property owners failing to pay taxes become "tax delinquent." The state then holds different types of auctions:
    • Tax Lien Auction: Buy claim to property’s unpaid taxes—owner repays you with interest or you may get deed later.
    • Tax Deed Auction: You buy the property outright at auction (e.g., Florida).
    • Tax Redemption Deed Auction: Winning bidder gets deed if the owner doesn’t “redeem” (by paying up) within a set period (e.g., Georgia, Texas).
  • Griffin: “With a lien, it’s only a claim on a property...but in some states, liens mature into deeds” ([11:30]).
  • Example: Alabama’s over-the-counter list has “over 10,000 properties” where “the lien period is three years...if I go buy that, it’s already a deed” ([13:57]).

3. Winning Strategies & Creative Deals

• Why Tax Deeds?

  • Joseph prefers being “where nobody else is looking” ([17:46]), stressing the competitive advantage in less saturated markets.
  • He's personally “holding 33” properties, with “over a hundred transactions,” often through JV partnerships for scale ([18:40], [18:59]).

• Creative Acquisition Methods ([29:30], [32:07], [33:37])

  • Direct-To-Owner Approach: Use tax sale lists as leads; contact owners about to lose property, offering 20–40% of as-is value.
  • JV Partnerships: Partner with owner to rehab and sell, splitting profits.
  • Cash for Keys: Pay owner to sign over deed, streamlining title clearance.
  • Redemption Extension: Lend the money needed to pay taxes, secure deed of trust; if not repaid, you take the property ([33:37]).
    • “We would give them [the owner] that $16,000 to cover back taxes ... now you have six more months ... if you don’t pay us back, the deed’s already ours.”

• Title Company and Due Diligence

  • Always use a title company or attorney for title checks, lien clearance, and insurance:
    “They’ll make sure you own that thing free and clear ... the MVP of real estate” ([31:34]).

4. Debunking Misconceptions & Making It Accessible

• Is It Complicated?

  • “It’s the same as driving a car ... in the beginning we’re scared, but then we hit the pedal to the floor” ([16:33]).
  • Joseph teaches that learning this is no more complex than any other real estate path, but “who you hang around plays a lot into this” ([16:33]).

• Entry Steps for Beginners ([37:33])

  • With as little as $3,000, anyone can get started:
    1. Go to your county clerk of court.
    2. Find the tax sale/tax foreclosure list.
    3. Register, do due diligence, and bid at auction or approach owners directly.
    4. “In Alabama, you can get something right now for around $500 to $1,000...actual houses” (will need work!) ([39:19]).
  • “If you don’t see it, there’s a contact us section. Call them up—you can literally not know what you’re talking about and they’ll figure it out” ([38:04]).

5. Leveraging OPM & Credit

• Richest Man in Babylon Lessons ([23:21])

  • Griffin admits starting as a “broke millionaire” (equity-rich, cash-poor), until learning to leverage debt sensibly.
  • Used OPM (other people’s money) to raise $300k, then acquired $2M+ in assets in one year ([24:32]).
  • “You can scale a lot more. It was a mindset shift for me, man, it was scary” ([23:20]).

• More Than Just Bank Loans

  • Don't overlook business credit, credit cards, or self-directed IRAs.
  • “Some people are walking around, Joe, with 200k and they don’t know it because they have an IRA that they didn’t even know they could convert...” ([25:54]).

6. Win-Win Deals and Ethical Investing

• “What I love the most is—what a win-win ... you’re saving someone’s butt. You’re giving [the owner] a second chance ... if they don’t deliver, you have upside too” ([34:12]).
• “We always try to go through the right ... close with title ... there are some cases where we might not use a title company ... but we typically will use them to be on the safer side” ([30:04]).

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Notable Quotes

• On Mindset & Networking:
  “I would have never thought that I would be retiring at 29 ... just started hanging around like minded individuals ... eventually I just became one by default.” – Joseph Griffin ([01:19])

• On Opportunity:
  “After looking into it, I was like, holy—why don’t people know about this stuff?” – Joseph Griffin ([03:20])

• On Simplicity:
  “It’s the same as driving a car, man ... what you tune into, you turn into.” – Joseph Griffin ([16:33])

• On Creative Deal Structure:
  “People wanted more time instead of money ... we give them the money, pay the back taxes, but they sign the deed over to us ... if they don’t redeem, we keep the property.” – Joseph Griffin ([33:37])

• On Action & Timing:
  “Best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. Get started.” – Joseph Griffin ([53:13])

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Important Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment / Quote / Topic | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | Show intro & Joseph’s bio | | 02:57 | Joseph’s first exposure to real estate and VA loan story | | 03:20 | First encounter with tax deeds in Afghanistan | | 04:37 | Acquiring three properties in one month for under $6k | | 10:29 | Explanation: How tax deed/lien/redemption auctions work | | 13:57 | Example: Alabama’s over-the-counter deeds | | 15:02 | The need to clear title and creative methods to do so | | 17:46 | Why Joseph chose tax deeds over other niches | | 18:40 | “Currently at 33”—portfolio size and transaction count | | 23:08 | Shifting mindset: from equity-rich to leveraging debt (OPM) | | 25:54 | Discussing other sources: credit cards, self-directed IRAs | | 29:30 | Direct-to-owner strategy explained | | 33:37 | Lending to delinquent owners for deed security; creative lending | | 37:33 | Step-by-step: How to get started for $3,000 | | 39:19 | “$500–$1,000 for actual houses in Alabama” | | 44:28 | Short sale vs. foreclosure vs. tax deed definitions | | 46:14 | Debts/mortgages can be wiped out in a tax deed sale | | 48:02 | Where to find Joseph: Tax Deed Wolf on all platforms | | 53:13 | Final message: “Best time to plant a tree ... get started” |

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Tone & Style

• Friendly, enthusiastic, conversational
• Real-life stories and practical analogies (“It’s the same as driving a car... You’re scared at first, but then you just go.”)
• Humorous and motivational throughout (“You have to be in the sky sometimes before you can tell people you can fly.”)

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Resources & Recommendations

• Book: Richest Man in Babylon ([23:21])
• Book: Fanatical Prospecting ([50:15])
• Classic Book: How to Win Friends and Influence People ([50:15])
• Networking App: Clubhouse—virtual networking for real estate and more ([51:41])
• Joseph's Book: Tax Deed Investing by Joseph Griffin

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How to Connect with Joseph Griffin

• Instagram: @taxdeedwolfceo
• Website: taxdeedwolfacademy.com
• Search or Google: “Tax Deed Wolf” on any platform

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Closing Takeaway

“Best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. Get started.”
— Joseph Griffin ([53:13])

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For anyone interested in tax deed investing or feeling stuck on the sidelines, this episode serves as a primer, an inspiration, and a call to action: The opportunity is wide open, and expert guidance is just a click away.

Transcript

[Joe Jensen]

Welcome to the Real Estate Investing School podcast. I'm your host, Joe Jensen. Our guest today is Joseph Griffin, the Tax Deed Wolf. Joseph Griffin, he's an army vet of 11 years, did two combat tours after retiring from nursing at age 29 as an ICU manager. He's now the CEO of Tax Deed Wolf Academy, Wolfpack Capital, Wolfpack Realty. I'm going to be tired saying all the things he's a CEO of, but he specializes in tax deed investing and multi family acquisition. He literally wrote the book on the subject. The fitting title of the is Tax Deed Investing by Joseph Griffin. So check that out. But man, welcome to the show. Glad to have you here.

[Joseph Griffin]

Thanks Joe. It's always a pleasure, you know, being with like minded individuals. You know, that's how we grow. So pleasure to be here, dude.

[Joe Jensen]

It's a fun thing. It's cool meeting people from all over the country, all over the world that, that do this and they're excited and passionate about it as I am, where it's just like, man, it really is life changing, which is, you know, people throw that term out a lot. But it's like this will literally change my day to day life the more I do it. And it has which, and I'm sure you've seen the same thing.

[Joseph Griffin]

Oh, 100. Like I would have never thought that I would be retiring at 29. Right? We all talk about it. Oh, I want to retire young. I want to retire young. But just started hanging around those like minded individuals, you know, those other real estate investors, those other millionaires. And eventually I just became one by default. Just, just became one just from being around them, soaking up all that knowledge. That's what it took.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah, it's funny, man. The word retired is funny because you think of like what do people do when they retire? You know, it's like, oh, they, they probably manage some of their investments and go golf or whatever, you know, and, and I didn't even realize I was retired. And then I was like, moment. I was like, dude, I haven't checked in with anybody. I don't clock in with anybody. I don't get a paycheck, I don't like, I do whatever I want. Just fit it all into my day or my month. And. And I was like, oh, I guess I am retired. Like I'm doing what I want to do. And it was just like a cool realization, even though that wasn't the goal necessarily, but it was just like I want to be able to design a life that I want to live and I'M like, this is what it looks like, so it's kind of cool, you know, but man, tax deed investing, so that's kind of a niche. We talk a lot on this show about cash flow and, you know, all the different kinds of real estate investing. But, you know, particularly cash flow seems to be a passion because that's what gives people the freedom to kind of do whatever they want to do, like we've been talking about. But how did you first, I want to know. Well, two questions. So how did you get into tax deed investing specifically? But then also, what was your first exposure to real estate as an investment where you're like, oh, this is something I needed to pay attention to.

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah. So I, I started off my career, 17 years old, joined the Army National Guard, and once I graduated high school, they just shipped me off. Right. Medic school, LPN school, then eventually bridged up to nursing somewhere along this time. We ended up in Afghanistan in 2013. OEF, 13, 14 in my squad leader.

[Joe Jensen]

That was your first tour?

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah, went to Afghanistan. I was 20, I turned 21 on the way there. Right. And my squad leader is like, man, have you ever heard of tax deeds? Because we live tax free over there. No, we don't have to pay for water, no gym memberships. Like, we're just making money. And he's like, you ever heard of tax deeds? And when he was telling me about it, I was a man. Sounds like a scam. It kind of sounds like a scam. And after looking into it, I was like, holy, why don't, why don't people know about this stuff? Right? Why don't people know? So after that first deployment, my intro to real estate was I qualified for a VA loan and I actually got my first house for $78,000 in Florida. And I spent no money to get it. Zero money down. We negotiated and the seller covered the closing costs and everything. Yeah. So I literally just got the keys. Here I am 22 or 21, going on 22. And I had a three bedroom, two bath home. And shoot that thing today, I haven't refinanced it. Right. It's over 300k and. And I got it for just 78, 000. So I was like, man, this equity stuff is really cool. Fast forward. I'm nursing, making a little bit of money. And I looked back into the tax deeds because I didn't jump in in 2013. It wasn't until a few years later. And I looked into it and I was like, you know, I'm making a Little bit of money now as a nurse. How can little old me compete with these millionaires, right? How can I get into real estate investing like they are? And tax deeds was the way I went and used my VA loan a second time, right? Got a second home and then I purchased another. A second home home in that same month for $3,000 through tax sale and then a third for 1900 through tax sales. So in 30 days, less than 30 days, I had gotten three properties and I had used less than $6,000.

[Joe Jensen]

That's awesome. We're all three of them VA loans.

[Joseph Griffin]

No, no, no. The, the first one, well, this was my second home at the time. It was a VA loan, but two of those were tax sale. So in that one month I use a VA loan again, no money down. And I got a $3,000 tax deed property and a nineteen hundred dollar tax deed property. Daytona Beach. What's up guys?

[Joe Jensen]

It's Brody Fawcett. Hey, I just want to jump on here really quick and say thank you.

[Joseph Griffin]

Thank you, thank you for tuning in.

[Joe Jensen]

And listening to the show week after week. It means so much to us.

[Joseph Griffin]

Real quick, if you are getting value out of this, please go ahead and.

[Joe Jensen]

Leave us a review and feel free to share this with anyone who else might receive some value. And if you feel like you, you could benefit from working with us directly through a one on one coach like.

[Joseph Griffin]

Joe or through our trainings and online program.

[Joe Jensen]

Head on over to realestate investingschool.com where you can schedule a free one on one strategy call and dive in to see if real estate investing school will add some value for you. Man, so many things there I want to unpack. So one, like obviously, obviously thank you for your service. Like that's cool. Like I never have done a tour. I've never been in the army. I have had family, but I couldn't imagine being in Afghanistan at 21 years old. Where was your other tour that you served?

[Joseph Griffin]

So it wasn't quite a tour. I went to Kuwait for another year. I wouldn't. That was really a tour. But it was being away from family for a year.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah, for sure. No, I mean that's, that's incredible. But it's cool that, that you did that and you obviously earned certain benefits. Listening. When you serve our country, when you put your life on the line, you know what I mean? You're not on a zoom call just chatting about making money like you're out in the trenches. You and, and, and the country gives you some benefits from that, right? And one of the major benefits is. Is the VA loan. Like, if anybody's listening and you have family, that's VA or your va. A lot of people don't even know how powerful the tool that is, and they just sit on there. We won't spend the whole time talking about that. But, man, like I said, zero down payment, no mortgage insurance. You know, like, you can literally get a home for free. And if you buy that. Right. Like, it's incredible. And that's what you did, which is just so cool. I love that you took advantage of something that you had earned like that. And, you know, for anybody in that position where they can. It's like, jump on that.

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah, definitely. And I used it twice, right? There's no. There's not a max anymore. Right. As long as you qualify for more benefits. So I had two VA loans at one time. I was like, wow, this is crazy.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah, that surprised me. I used to think you can only get one, like, an FHA loan, like, only one at a time. But it's like, no, you. You have a number, like, how much they'll lend. Like, you can loan against, like, 400,000 or 800,000 or whatever, but you could do that on two or three different homes as long as you hit that number. Is that correct?

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah. Yeah. There's not even. Like, there used to be a cap, and apparently that's gone. It just goes off of area and zip code or whatever. So if you live in California, you might qualify for damn near 1.5 million. You know, who knows?

[Joe Jensen]

Really?

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah, it's.

[Joe Jensen]

It's just what you qualify for. They don't have a cap anymore.

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah, it's just what you qualify for based on your, you know, credit in an area you live in, Apparently. Yeah.

[Joe Jensen]

Wow. Well, that's even better. Take advantage. If anybody's listening, if you have family that's VA and they're not taking advantage of it, chat with them. Figure out how to help them if you're va, Definitely. Like, get. Get that. Get that taken care of. But anyway, so. So you. You bought this. Kind of dabbled in it. You're like, you saw the benefit, and that's how a lot of people do. That's how I did, too. You know, I bought a. I knew real estate was cool, and then it wasn't until a few years later that I'm like, wait, I made how much just by making money? I rented this out. I'm making cash flow. And then the thing went up. $100,000. Like, I've done a lot harder things make 100 grand. Like, that's really cool. And that's kind of what lights people's fire. And, and I know as, as educators, you know, we kind of want to help people. Hey, catch the fire now. Don't have to buy, wait five or 10 years and then go, oh, I should have gone harder. Like, go hard now, because it's going to just keep going up in the long way. But you had someone in, in the military that kind of turned you on to the, the, the tax deed stuff. That's pretty cool that you had a, you know, a starter mentor or whatever you want to call him. That kind of opened your eyes to that, even if you didn't jump on it right away.

[Joseph Griffin]

Well, what's funny is he only saw the video, like on A. On YouTube, like really quick, and he's not even doing it. That's what's funny.

[Joe Jensen]

Okay. It's just like me topic.

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah. He's just like, oh, man, have you heard of this? And, you know, we're just talking one day and he didn't even do it. He was just like, yo, you might want to check this out. And it's funny. I was on a TikTok live the other day, and he actually popped up on the live. It was, it was hilarious. I was like, yo, what's up?

[Joe Jensen]

That's awesome. So, so then how did you get your first tax deal? Well, first, let's back up. What the hell is tax deed investing? People are like, I mean, I think a lot of people have heard of like, short sales maybe, but maybe you could break down the difference between short sales and taxi investing and bank auctions, because to a lot of people, those are all kind of the same. Vague. I don't know what that means.

[Joseph Griffin]

Right, right. So let's see. Yeah, you're right. Let's take it back. So in the US Whenever you're on a property, you have to pay your property taxes. When you don't pay those property taxes, you will now be what we call tax delinquent. Right. So depending on what state you live in, the state will determine which type of auction is conducted because they need their money. Right. They got employees to pay. They have other organizations that they need to fund. So when we don't pay our taxes, not only do they lose money, but typically these are the bad apples of the neighborhood, also harming the housing market. So they love us. So we come in and like I said, depending on what state you live in, it's either going to be a tax lien auction, a Tax deed auction or tax redemption deed auction. Now, there are other types of auctions out there. You might hear of sheriff sale, you might hear of scavenger sale. You might hear of adjudicated properties. That's a term more specifically for Louisiana. But there's, there's so many different types, right? And that's what people don't understand. With a lien, it's only a claim on a property. So, you know, Joe, you could owe $3,000 in back taxes and I can come get a lien on that. And I literally only have a claim to your property and you have to pay me back that $3,000 or whatever I spent on that plus interest, right? Now, in some states, liens actually mature into deeds, right? Deeds show ownership. Well, some states have straight up deed sales, like Florida. Florida has lien sales, but they also have deed sales. I can go to Florida online auction. We have 67 counties. Most of them are online. I can win today and that deed will be mine tomorrow. As soon as I make the payment, right, it's mine. So I don't have to worry about an owner coming back and paying me with interest to keeping it or redemption period. The third and final one. Taking a little breath here, right? The third. Yeah, the third one. And it's not the final one, but these are the main three types that you'll hear about. Tax, redemption, deeds. These are states like Georgia and Texas. You go into this auction and yes, you, you win the auction, but it is a redemption deed. It's in the title. The owner does have a certain amount of time in which they can come redeem, I. E. Pay you with interest to keep their property. If they don't, then you are getting a deed. Unlike a lien, a lien won't always turn into a deed. It just depends on which state operates that way. Some states a lien will mature into a deed, but in some states, a lien will not mature into a deed. It does not mean that you're going to own that property one day. So that's, that's so in a nutshell and under what, a minute tax? Under a minute and a half.

[Joe Jensen]

That's good. So to unpack that a little bit. So if you go buy one of these things in an auction, if you're buying a tax lien, like you're just buying the debt where, hey, now they have to pay you instead of the government because you, you bought it. Let's say someone else. 5,000 on their taxes, you could go on their back taxes on their property. You could go buy that maybe for what, 2000 or something like that. And now they owe you that. Or end up the full 5,000.

[Joseph Griffin]

It would be the full amount, typically.

[Joe Jensen]

So you pay the full amount?

[Joseph Griffin]

Yep, you pay the full amount. And then they have to pay you back that amount with interest if they want to keep their property.

[Joe Jensen]

And if they don't, depending on the state, sometimes you'll go, and maybe it'll go to auction or you could try to foreclose on it or whatnot. But in certain states you're at. If they are delinquent enough, it actually goes to the deed. They're not just selling you the pac taxes. You can actually the state and it gets the inheritance of the deed because there's so much back taxes and they can sell the deed. Is that, that's kind of cool.

[Joseph Griffin]

It's all over the place. So Alabama is a prime example. If I go to Alabama, there's a couple of ways. Revenue.alabama.gov property you can see all the counties in Alabama. There's literally over like 10,000 properties that are available on the over the counter list. This is a list that. These are properties that didn't sell in previous auctions. Right. Thousands available right now. So if I go there, here's the cool thing. The lean period in Alabama is three years, but guess what, there's 2013 liens. So if I go buy that, it's already a deed because it became a deed in 2016. So there's just a lot to this game that people like really are kind of sleeping on, you know, so it's. It's some awesome stuff. It's some awesome stuff.

[Joe Jensen]

That's cool, man. So I like the idea though. You can just go buy something that someone else has neglected, get the actual deed, meaning you own it. It's like having the title to the car, basically. You know, you get the deed to the property and then, and then you can go improve it, fix it up, sell it, flip it. Long term rental. You can do whatever you want with it, right?

[Joseph Griffin]

Well, yes. So the deed shows the ownership of the land. Right. So with like you mentioned titles, the, the structures, the man made things. Typically we have like the titles, the boats, the cars. So then we do have the clear title, which it really just depends on the, the process can be different in any way. Most people will say, oh, quiet title process. This is something you would do with an attorney. It would cost you about 2,500 bucks. Could take two to three months, maybe even longer. So that is one way we don't even do that anymore. Right. We have so many other techniques that we would try to do before. Before that. Kind of like a Cash for Keys method. Like, one thing we can do is go approach the previous property owner and just pay them a little less to just sign over the deed to us. Right. That's one thing. Then we have specialized title companies that can just clear title for us in 10 to 14 days. It'll be half the price of paying the attorney if the property qualifies. So, you know, not. I don't say all this to overwhelm anyone, but just to kind of enlighten that there. There is definitely some, you know, strategy and technique here. We don't just close our eyes and just go buy up everything.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah, no, that's cool. That's cool. So for those listening that, you know, they might hear like, oh, man, this sounds complicated, but it's like, okay, first of all, you know, we're 15 minutes into a podcast. Like, yeah, it might take more than 15 minutes to learn how to do something, but once you really understand it, I bet it's a lot more doable than it might sound like on the surface. Is that true, or do you feel like it's pretty complicated forever?

[Joseph Griffin]

No, it's the same as driving a car, man. When we first drove, we were scared. We. Oh, my gosh, how do I put it in drive? How do I do this? You're scared of the Internet, the interstate, and now we get in there and we just hit the pedal to the floor. We drive like Ricky Bobby. Right. So it's the same thing. It seems complicated. Just like real estate seemed complicated for me at first. Now. Oh, I know. I already know. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna offer this, sign the purchase and sale agreement. I'm gonna negotiate. I'm gonna renegotiate after inspection. If I find, you know, I'm gonna ask for seller credits. Right. I didn't know all this stuff in the beginning, but if. Yeah, if you stay focused and you, who you hang around plays a lot into this, right? What you tune into, you turn into. So your listeners here, if they're listening to this podcast and they're listening to all your episodes, I guarantee you they're going to be, you know, five steps forward ahead than the average person who's just, you know, listening to rap when they're. When they're driving or just listening to nothing.

[Joe Jensen]

Amen. Amen. So, so tell me why you personally, what do you like about tax deed investing and why you decided to learn all the ins and outs of this kind of niche way to invest. And, like, what do you love so much about it?

[Joseph Griffin]

The thing I love about it is I like to do. I'm always different. So everybody was doing this. Everybody was doing this. Everybody was doing now Airbnb. So I was like, no one's really doing this. And I remembered the struggle that I had, you know, buying the bad properties, buying properties that had other liens on it and all this and all that. And so I was like, people saw what I was doing and they were like, oh, you should be a coach, right? You should teach this stuff. And I didn't even think about it. Honestly, I didn't think about it at first, but so many people kept asking me what I was doing, and I'm like, look, I. I left nursing to be free. I didn't leave nursing to. To now, you know, just go teach everybody for. For nothing. And that's kind of why I got into it. The crowd actually kind of just requested it.

[Joe Jensen]

That's cool. That's cool. So you've bought how many tax deed properties you think you've bought over the time?

[Joseph Griffin]

Oh, man. So currently, I'm actually holding mostly everything. So we're currently at 33. Yes, we're currently at 33 now. Transactions, though. Over a hundred. Over 100.

[Joe Jensen]

You've done over 100 transactions, but you've held around 33 of them. So what do you do with the other ones? You just kind of flip them.

[Joseph Griffin]

So those are all sold or they're with. They're with, like, business partners or whatnot. So it's. It's cool because, you know, we always like to assume that it's about age. Right? But I always tell people it's like, no, it's about numbers. It's about experience. It's about receipts. So the average person may do, you know, they could be 60 years old, but they've only done 10 transactions. Right? But someone like me, I'm 31 now, and we've done over a hundred transactions, right? It's like, okay, who do you think is more experienced when it comes to real estate? We're talking life than the 60 year old. Right? But who do you think is more experienced? So the reason it's so many is because what I've put together with the academy is I have a. I have so many business partners now. So we'll partner up on certain deals. So then I do get their experience because I'm in on this deal with them, right? So all these JV Partnerships and everything. All these closings keep happening. Different things happen with different closings. Right. I'm just able to just have, able to have learned so many different things in multiple states. And that's ultimately what makes me, I think, number one versus most tax sale investors who just like stay in their area and kind of keep to themselves. I can kind of run numbers around a lot of people in a different states.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah, I think a lot of power comes from just putting in the reps. Right. Like, the more you've done something, it's like you, you gain something. So much education on that. I mean, a lot of times we talk, you know, to, to people who've never bought, like, dude, you just need to buy your first deal. It doesn't need to be the best thing in the world, but it's like getting one under your belt. Like, you learn so much and you feel more confident. And it's like, yeah, you do that a hundred times. You know, it's like, man, you, you, you feel really confident. You really learn a ton. But you know, sometimes people are just waiting to find the perfect deals here or there, and they're slowing their education than, than doing as many deals as they can. But obviously, if they can get somebody like you, who actually has done it before to hold their hand through a couple of them, they can avoid a lot of pitfalls. And, and you actually teach people how to do the, the, the tax deed investing, right. And people can follow you and learn how to do that by going to your, your mentorship. Is that correct?

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah, 100%. And one thing that I did, I didn't believe in just showing someone one thing because it's not enough. We played. A lot of people have played Monopoly before, and one thing that we tend to do in real life is I'm gonna compare Monopoly to what we do in real life, right? So they'll roll the dice and they'll just try to hurry up and they'll try to pass go a thousand times and then finally have enough money to buy something. Well, in the game Monopoly, the bank hands out the money first. And so we've all been doing it in real life. This super slow, highly inappropriate way of just trying to save our way to wealth. And so that's something that we have to teach. Step one, you know, hey, credit profiles should look like this. Hey, this is what business credit is. This is why business credit is better. This is how you, you know, get these lines of credit. This is how you invest. This is the returns you should look for, right? Cash on cash returns, cap rates, purchase cap. Like, we're literally really diving into this thing. So they come in and like, man, I thought I was just gonna learn about how to just go get something for $2,000 real quick. And then they just get so much stuff. And then now they're real estate investors. They're cutting hours on their jobs, right? Some of them leaving their jobs. So it's just been. Man, it's been amazing.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah. Let's talk about debt a little bit. And I like the analogy used, right? Like you play Monopoly, the bank gives out the money at the beginning, and then you get to play the game, and you're like, no, that's how to do it. Like, that is the right way to do it. Don't try to, like, earn your money beforehand. You're not going to earn your way to wealth. Right? And that's a hard thing. A lot of us have to shift that mindset and perspective because obviously debt is a. It's like fire. I say, right? It can burn you or it can, you know, create iron and food and whatever you, you know, if you use it wisely. But it can be bad. And a lot of times people grow up just being told, hey, don't touch fire. Right? And so like, oh, I'm gonna stay away from debt. So explain to me your perspective on that and what you mean by the bank giving out the money and how people can take advantage of that.

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah. 100. So what I did full transparency when I first started. And. And when I first. When I first had a million in equity, right? I call myself a broke millionaire. Right?

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joseph Griffin]

They're like, what do you mean you're a broke millionaire? I was like, well, I have a million dollars in equity, but guess what? I'm broke because I used all my cash to get these. To get these assets. And so when somebody, you know, one of my mentors called me up, he's like, man, you know, you're doing some good stuff, but have you thought about, like, using act like debt to. To do this stuff? You can scale a lot more. And I. It was a mindset shift for me, man. It was scary. But once I started understanding it, and you're gonna probably ask me a question about a book later, but Richest man in Babylon was a book that I read, and it just, like, really taught me about money and which. What I should be doing with it, what I shouldn't be doing with it. And once I understood it, it was just like, wow. We. We went ahead and started using OPM and With that opm, we raised, we started Wolfpack Capital, right? We raised about $300,000. And we then went and we bought, man, the first year we bought like 15 houses. Houses, right, houses. I mean $15,000, 20,000, 8,000. These houses were worth over 200 grand. All of them. There was only one, actually, only one was only worth of like maybe 140, but.

[Joe Jensen]

And you're buying them for 15 or 20 grand.

[Joseph Griffin]

We were getting them for so cheap, right? And, and we had, with 3,000, with 300K. We then had like over 2 million in assets. And it was like, wow, that is crazy, right? It's, it's ridiculous. So that's when I knew I was like, okay, I have something really good going on here.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah.

[Joseph Griffin]

And everybody wanted in on it. So then investors are like, hey, how can I, you know, how can I get in on it? How can I get in? And I was still scared. I'm not going to laugh. Still scared. I don't want anybody else's money. But it's something I had to be coached through, to be honest. I had to get a mentor. They coached me through it. And then now I'm like, okay, we got this nice thing going.

[Joe Jensen]

That's awesome. So, so one way people can use, you know, opm, like I said, other people's money is, you know, you start a partnering, raising money from private people to, to do deals with them, right? Other ways people, you can use opm, other people's money is, is the bank, right? They can literally go get debt, a business loan or they can just, you know, do a normal, you know, get debt to buy a house like you, you did with your VA loan, right? You didn't spend your money, you borrowed the bank's money to, to buy that. You didn't fork out $200,000 or even $80,000 or whatever, you know, and, and that's a powerful thing to leverage if you, if you do it wisely, right?

[Joseph Griffin]

And there's, and there's other ways, right? We, we don't talk about credit cards enough, right? But that's simple interest versus mortgages, compounding interest, right? We don't talk about that enough. Some people are walking around, Joe, with 200k and they don't know it because they have an IRA that they didn't even know. They can convert to self directed and go buy an apartment complex, for crying out loud, you know, So I mean, there's private money. You got rich, a rich auntie and a rich uncle once you show them, right, you have to Be. You have to be in the sky sometimes before you can tell people you can fly, right? So once they see what you're doing and they're like, oh my gosh, this guy is purchasing all these assets. Like, what is he doing? Hey, I got a hundred thousand just sitting in my bank account and I seen this other bank just crashed. I don't want to really keep it there. Hey, can we partner up? Bam. JV deal.

[Joe Jensen]

100. And that's the funny thing. Even splitting a deal 50, 50 with somebody is a thousand times better return than in the stock market or this or that. Like say the IRAs or, or 401ks, people putting all their money in there and that's so normalized. That's like, well that's what you do. And then stocks are hemorrhaging and people are losing their retirement. They're like, oh, well, that's how it goes, you know, but it's like you go to, you know, say, hey, let's split a deal. Give me your money and we'll go tackle this. Like, well, I don't want to split half the deal. It's like you're making 10 times what you would make in the stock market. You know what I mean? So that, that's funny. And then the cool thing is people learn and then they can do more and more and more. So. So, man, I mean, so. But let's back up a little bit because I'm sure those who listen like, wait, you're buying $200,000 homes for 15 or 20 grand? Like, how's that possible? Like you said, you first time you heard about, you're like, that's a scam, right? Like this is bull crap. Like someone's just trying to take my money. Like, like how does that really work? And obviously, you know, you have your whole thing. There's a lot more than you can share and teach enough right now, but explain it enough that people can see that it's a real thing and it is doable and, and why it's the way it is. And maybe the most basic, simplest way, someone could start with it.

[Joseph Griffin]

Right? Right. So I won't, I. One thing I won't do is hold anything back, right? Because there's just so much to show it. You would need mentorship to like really just like fine tune it. All right? Because it might sound gibberish in the beginning. So there's a couple, there's a few strategies here. The first strategy is after I, I take the tax sale list, I use it as a leads list because you don't want to go to auction and get outbid. Right. There are other people with more money than you, so I don't want to get outbid. I'll take that leads list and then I will just go start approaching those property owners. Right. My team and I. So if I figure there's a house, I do comps and everything, I see that it's worth, let's say 100k, we typically buy that house for 20 to 40% of its as is value. So if, if it can go for 100k and the owner already knows they're about to lose it in the tax sale auction, they have no idea that they could get that extra surplus money or anything, then I'm going to offer them probably $20,000 initially. So you'd be amazed with how many Americans have ever seen 20k in their bank account or have ever seen 40,000. So a lot of times they will take the deal. Right. A lot of, in a lot of cases, if you can find them and everything, they will take the deal. So that's one method. Right.

[Joe Jensen]

So real quick, let me stop you. So if you go buy that, so you look up and who's going to be going on tax auction or whatever, and then you go straight to the seller and say, hey, you know, before it even goes to auction, you get like, hey, I'll give you 20 grand for your property. Do you need to then also go and pay all the back taxes on it to remove the liens?

[Joseph Griffin]

You could, you could see the cool thing about contracts is it's just on what two people agree on. So we could agree, hey, $20,000, but upon closing, you have to pay this 5,000 in back taxes. Or we could agree on, hey, I'll give you 20,000 and I'll cover your back taxes. So then I'm all in 25,000. So I've done it both ways. But it really just, it really just depends right. On how, you know, sweet the deal is.

[Joe Jensen]

But as long as someone pays it, you don't want to buy that and then not pay the tax that or then you're the one getting the, the place foreclose under you.

[Joseph Griffin]

And we typically try to go through the right, you know, we'll, we'll try to close with title. Of course, if we, we're not trying to just do things on our own all the time. There are some, some cases where we might not use a title company or an attorney, but we typically will use them to be on the safer side.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah. And when you go through that process with the title company, they're going to require like, hey, this taxes need to be paid off. Like, this is all the things to have clean title. And dude, I'll, I'll just do a shout out for title companies, right? Like, we all know about lenders. You know, you can go get a loan to buy a house or we know about real estate agents, obviously here, you know, help you find the house. The golden Nugget the most, the MVP of real estate is the title companies, right? They're the ones doing the real important work making sure that you own that thing free and clear. I just had a situation where, and I never had this. I bought something and there was actually, you know, I got title insurance. I had the warranty D. Like everything was clean as a button. But then someone else came and said that they owned the property, right? And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, and it's this whole thing that I won't get into. But man, I was so glad I had title insurance. And they stepped up and their attorneys came in and like, I got all this money back for it. It was like, it was this whole thing and I was just like, I am so glad that I had title insurance. Right? And so anyway, shout out to the title insurance companies. Use title insurance companies whenever you can. You know, it's not, not always possible, but 99 of the time it is. And it will protect your ass. And they'll walk you through the most important parts to make sure it's done right so you don't end up with a lemon.

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah. 100 we, we always try to go that route, give ourselves ample time. And another thing they're checking for is other liens on the property. Right. That, that alone is, is a good reason to go to the title company, make sure you won't owe any money when you get that property. So 100%.

[Joe Jensen]

That's cool. I love that, man. So anyway, I interrupted you though. So you. The one way you do it, you're saying you go, you find them, you get, go to the seller first or the, the owner and convince them to be a seller and they sell you the, the property instead of going straight to the auction.

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah. So then we have. There's a couple of other methods, right? You're seeing a lot more of these. You see a lot more of these JV partnerships. Like, hey, you know, let's, you know, let's partner up. Another method is you actually partner up with the owner. Like, hey, I can give you this much for your property, right? You know, you, you sign this, this contract with them saying, hey, I'm going to pay you this much. You partner up with them, you do the rehab on the thing and everything. And then now you can just actually sell it for market value and then pay them what they wanted. And then you get also this nice chunk of change, right? You see a lot of people starting to kind of do that method nowadays. Pretty much a little creative, right? It's one of these creative deals we do have seller finance, right? You. You could do that. Like, hey, look, I'll give you this much and then I'll pay you this much over time, right? But then of course, you're gonna have to cover the back taxes. Just so many things people are not thinking about. But the real gym here. And then I'll take a breath, right? The real gym that we started doing this will probably be a little next level for most people. But we decided or we came up with this idea that people wanted more time instead of money. So what we started offering them is a contract in which we would give them the money and pay the back taxes for them, right? But then they would. They would have to sign the deed over to us. And then if they don't redeem with that extra time, then we keep the property.

[Joe Jensen]

So. So break that down. When you say they want time to have money, what do you mean by that? Like, time to think about the deal or what do you mean?

[Joseph Griffin]

So, so let's say, Joe, your auction for your house is coming up next month, right? And you need $16,000. Not many people can come up with $16,000.

[Joe Jensen]

I don't have it next month, but if I had six months.

[Joseph Griffin]

Exactly. So we would give you that $16,000 to cover your back taxes, which we would pay it, right? So now you're not about to lose your house next month, right? So now you have six more months. But it is a deed of trust. So you have to sign that deed over to us while that loan is out. If you don't pay us back in the right amount of time, then the deed's already ours.

[Joe Jensen]

I love that, man. What a win win, right? Like, what a cool situation because really you're saving someone's butt. Like, if I'm in that situation and I'm like, dude, I have a month, I'm screwed, right? But you go, dude, I'll give you six months or a year. It's like you're giving me a second chance. You're giving me an opportunity to save my home. Now I might not deliver on that, you know, but either way, you know, you know, so you, you have an upside if, if they don't, if, if they do, you're probably charging some interest, so you're still making money for fronting it. So it's like you're either going to make a little bit or you're going to make a lot. And either way, it just saved this person's ass and gave them time to, to, to figure it out. I love that. And they're not just like, oh man, you're taking advantage of me while I'm down. You're like, dude, I'll help you back up. You know what I mean? And I go fight your fight.

[Joseph Griffin]

We've become note holders too. You know, there we found. We had one, they had 12 units and their mortgage. They had a mortgage still. And. No, no, they didn't have a mortgage, but they, their taxes were just so high or something. I forget what the case was, but we actually gave them the money and we're like, you know what, what can you afford? Let us see your, your T12. Let's see your profit and loss and stuff. Let's see what you can afford. And we're like, oh, well, we can afford 2,000. And I was like, all right, so we'll pay this, you know, we'll pay off whatever. They, they had a small mortgage or something left. I don't, I don't quite remember all the details, but we paid it off. It was, we ended up only paying like 80 something thousand total, right? Taxes and mortgage. And then they were paying us $2,000 a month. So it was like another win win. I was like, okay, we have the, you know, the cash flow coming in, but also if they don't pay, then we can foreclose on this.

[Joe Jensen]

And because you became the bank in that center, you didn't get the deed or the title. You didn't own it. They still owned it. Which again, win win, man, you saved their asses and you became the bank, you became the lender. So you're making payments and interest and everything off of it. And if, and then like I said, you have the opportunity to own it if, if they can't deliver.

[Joseph Griffin]

Right? It's just so many creative things that people don't, you know, it's scary, right? It's scary because if you don't have an attorney, I don't do this stuff by myself. Like full transparency. I don't know. I know a little bit about contracts, but I will not try to go right up. Write up a contract myself at all. So our attorney does all this stuff like, hey, we. Because there's even amounts of interest that you can charge per month per state, right? I can't just go sign, make up a contract, hey, you have to owe me 50 interest in a month. That might be illegal, you know, so.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah, yeah. And there's things called, like predatory lending laws, right? Where if you go in and you're doing things like that, charging, you know, 50 interest or taking badge, they don't know what they're doing, that. That can blow up in your face if you're not doing it right. So. Man, Joe. So there's so many things here. Like, I'm just like, I think this is such an interesting topic. Everybody obviously likes to get a good deal, you know, and some people like, well, I can't afford an attorney. I'm like, if you're getting a $200,000 house for 15 grand, you can like. Like, you can, you know, there's a little extra W room there if you're getting these kind of deals. And obviously not everything's a deal like that. But what would you say is the simplest way for someone to do, like, their first dip into tax deed investing? The most basic, easiest thing that they could maybe do?

[Joseph Griffin]

Okay, so if somebody has about $3,000, if they don't, then, you know, they'll probably need to find me on IG and let's talk. But get some business credit. Get. Get some credit card. Get somehow, some way, get at least $3,000. The quickest thing that you can do. Step one, you're going to go to your county clerk of court, all right? Wherever you live, county clerk of court will typically be your first step. Once you go to your county clerk of court, you then need to find that tax sale list. So what you're looking for on that website is anything that says tax sale tax, delinquency tax, foreclosure tax, lien tax deed, sheriff sale shoe. There's a. There's a few other things that could be called depending on where you live. If you don't see it, there's a contact us section. Call them up, and you can literally not know what you're talking about. And they'll figure it out. Like, hey, what happens when people don't pay their property taxes? Can I get those properties? They're gonna be like, oh, yeah, you go to this website, they might tell you, hey, we have auctions every month on this website. Or they may tell you, hey, we have annual auctions Only in May or whatever they tell you. It's gonna be different. Once you find this list, I want you to. Of course, due diligence, that's a class in itself. Once you get that list, you're there. You may have to register, you may have to put some sort of deposit down or whatnot. But if you're already a savvy real estate investor, then you kind of already understand due diligence, right? You want to make sure there's no other liens on it. You want to make sure you know the value of the property so you know how much to spend on it, Right? You don't want to overpay, especially in this market. So once you have that, you show up to auction or you just go try to negotiate with the homeowners and buy it directly from them, and voila, you can get something right now. I know for a fact in Alabama, you can get something right now for around 500 to a thousand.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy for people to think 500, 000 bucks. And you're talking just raw land or actual home.

[Joseph Griffin]

I'm talking actual houses in Alabama. I'm talking actual homes. Now will they. Will they be full gut jobs? Yes. Yeah, they won't be ready to rent.

[Joe Jensen]

And like you said, that'd be a whole nother podcast, a whole nother thing of how to do your due diligence. You don't want to just buy something because it's cheap, you know, but if you, you can look and see how. What's my exit strategy? Is this something I'm going to flip? Is this something I'm going to long hold? Is this something I'm going to rehab? Like, you got to figure out what you want to do with it so you know what property types to buy. And I'll tell people. It's like, there's usually an answer for everything, but it doesn't mean it's what you're doing. And don't try to do everything, everything. Like, I mean, you can if you've got enough members on your team, right? Where you've got people to kind of spearhead everything. But if you're just you, you don't want to be trying to do every different type of strategy. Like, pick one, start with that, and find the deal that actually fits your strategy, whether it's long hold or flip or value add or whatever you want to do it. But like I said, you got to know what your due diligence and your goals are. But. But that's A whole nother topic right here. You just go find what's available and see if anything fits what you're trying to do. I love that, man. So, so when you go to these, these sellers or these people are about to get foreclosed on, what, what's kind of your approach there? Like how you, I know you can do some skip tracing stuff or you can get online, like look up their stuff. Do you ever, like, you also probably mail them and have them call you or do you ever go to the house directly or what's kind of your approach there?

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah, so we used, we started out with the mail. Very, very slim numbers when it comes to mail, right? Yeah. As far as responses go. So then we went into, we went into phone calls, right. And you know, phone calls are hit or miss. We would take their info. We, we put it in the true peoplesearch.com, you know, skip trace, whatever, try to get as much info as we can. And from there, you know, we would like, I said we would kind of start our negotiations based off of the comps and we would typically try to keep it within 20 to 40% of the fair market value. Now door knocking is awesome. I feel like I'm the type of person I, if I'm sitting in front of you, there's no way that we're not working something out. Right?

[Joe Jensen]

Right.

[Joseph Griffin]

That's how I feel about it. So we would, we would do that method as well. Now as far as the steps go, I mean it's kind of going to be the same things, right, as same as a traditional close. From there, you, you sign purchase and sale agreement with that individual. You can do earnest money if you want. Right. You can have contingencies, the whole nine yards. You then get with that title company, like you said, shout out to the title companies. They get to work, they start doing everything, you know, wire money to title. Everybody's good, close, right. And closings are typically a lot faster than what most people are, you know, used to 30 days. Like. No, we will close. We'll close in like seven to 10 days. Yeah.

[Joe Jensen]

That's the funny thing, right, is when, once you don't, when you're not using a lender, you're not using a bank that's going to loan you hundreds of thousand dollars to buy it. Like, you find out that that's what takes all the time. Like it's so easy without the bank. Like it's borrowing the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's the pain in the butt that takes, you know, 30 days 45 days to buy the home. It's. It's a week or two, you know what I mean? Depending on what state you're in. Like, New York's crazy after all these abstracts and surveys they got to do. And it can be a. To take time even without loans. But. But for most states, it's. You can. Like I said, it's done. Like, it's a pretty simple process, which is crazy.

[Joseph Griffin]

You put a lender in and now they want you to send your DNA and, you know, give them your first born and. Yeah, it's. It's crazy now. And, oh, my goodness, insurance. Now what? That's a podcast in itself. What is going on with. Dude breaking deals up? It's killing. Underwriting for me in some cases is.

[Joe Jensen]

Like, wow, dude, everything's getting crazy. Ever since COVID everybody's like, oh, we'll just double triple L prices for no reason. Like, things get nuts. But yeah, it's funny, man. I was doing this one purchase a while ago, and it was one of my first, like, cash purchases, and I was able to sign on it over DocuSign. Like, I never even went to a notary. We didn't even go in anywhere. I was like, I can do this over the line. Like, well, yeah, because it's a condotel and it's. There's no loan, so we can just do it over DocuSign. I was like, that's it. It was so simple. It's so quick and so easy. Not having a lender, it was crazy.

[Joseph Griffin]

But game changer was.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah, for sure, man. There's so much we could talk about. We do need to start to wrap up, but I wanted to get a little bit of clarification on a couple definitions, though. So break down the difference between like, a short sale, like a foreclosure auction, and you know what? We. The. The tax deed investing, and maybe there's overlap. Maybe they're all the same thing. But explain like, because I think a lot of people have heard those phrases, but what's the difference and what's the same in those?

[Joseph Griffin]

Good question. Yeah, so like with a foreclosure auction, when we typically hear foreclosure, it's basically someone claiming something or taking something back, right? So when you typically hear just foreclosure, it's a bank, it's a. It's a lender. Those people who requested your DNA when you bought that house, they want their, you know, they want their asset back now. So if the property has a mortgage on it, then typically a bank Will foreclose on it. That's a foreclosure auction. Completely different from a tax foreclosure auction or a tax delinquency. Most of those properties are owned outright by the homeowner. So you can still find a mortgage, but it's kind of rare because a bank will have foreclosed on it by then. They won't let it go to a tax foreclosure, typically. Now the other types of sale, I think you mentioned short sale, the difference between that and like taxes. So short sale. I haven't done any short sales, so I'm probably not the best person to answer that. But it's still gonna be a bank involved. Right. You're gonna have to just sell that property really quick. You have a loan on it still, but you're taking a loss in most, in most cases. From what I know about short sale, the tax foreclosure, though, typically the owners own those properties outright. If there is a mortgage, guess what, the mortgage gets wiped out the minute the sale happens. Right. If we're being.

[Joe Jensen]

Oh really?

[Joseph Griffin]

Oh yeah. If we're being technical and legal about it, the mortgage actually gets wiped out upon the tax sale. Of course, the title does get clouded Right. When the sale happens as well. But yeah, there's, it's, it's some cool stuff. So don't miss out on this.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah, that's interesting. If it goes to tax deed where they're actually, actually doing a tax foreclosure sale, it'll wipe out the debt on it.

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah, if we're being legal. Yeah, if we're being legal about it, yes, the tax sale wipes out the mortgage. Now there are cases where I have seen some banks actually let it go to tax sale and then they'll just approach the new owner. In this case, it just depends upon, it depends on, you know, who your attorney is and all this and all that. But I have seen those new owners actually make a pretty decent amount of money off of that situation. It won't always happen, but I, I have seen it. Sure.

[Joe Jensen]

That's interesting. I assume most lenders, like the banks would not want it to go there, especially if it's going to get rid of their debt on it. So they probably make sure the taxes are even paid in escrow, whatever. That's why they do that. And then they can foreclose.

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah, I guess it depends on the asset. So what, what they told me is that, you know, it's easier for them to just try to come after the new owner than foreclose. On the property themselves, apparently. I was like, whoa, it was new to me. It was something pretty recent. Hadn't run into it until it was like last year. I was like, wait, what? Okay, all right, that's interesting.

[Joe Jensen]

And it's funny because there's so many nuances in real estate. It's like, man, you could do a hundred of this. And then there's like, oh, there's another thing here and another thing here and another thing here. And that's one thing that's kind of exciting about it keeps. It's like, it's actually engaging to be in this industry because there's always more to learn and do, no matter how much you've done of what you're comfortable with. But man, that's exciting. This is super cool. We are going to start to wrap up. I have, you know, so many more questions. We could do like a five hour podcast. But if people did want to learn more and they're just like, man, this is super interesting. I think this is, is kind of the route I want to go. You know, what's the best way for them to find you, to follow you, to contact you, to do whatever they want to learn more of what you got.

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah. So on all platforms, Tax Deed Wolf. On Instagram, Taxd Wolf CEO. And then if you need like more info, you can literally Google Taxdeed Wolf. It'll probably take you to taxdwolfacademy.com should be pretty easy to find. If you remember Tax Deed Wolf, you should definitely find me out on any platform.

[Joe Jensen]

I love it. I love it. My man. All right, well, let's bust into it then. We're going to go into our final four. All right, so here's the questions. Joseph, what is a non related, non real estate related bucket list item you've recently checked off or you're excited to check off next?

[Joseph Griffin]

So a non real estate related bucket list item for me was traveling. I wasn't able to travel as much when I was working a 9 to 5. So I told myself, told my wife, like, hey, look, we are about to start traveling like nomads. We, we're going everywhere. So we've been traveling at least like every three months.

[Joe Jensen]

Love it, love it. And you can do the bulk of your work just remotely then.

[Joseph Griffin]

Yeah, most of my stuff's online. I do most of my research online. If I need some boots on ground, then it's just a partnership or having a realtor or somebody go check it out for me.

[Joe Jensen]

That's cool. Where's the place you're excited to travel to next.

[Joseph Griffin]

Thailand. Thailand next year. Thailand.

[Joe Jensen]

Have you been?

[Joseph Griffin]

I never, Never been yet. Yeah. So it's, it's some. Yeah, I'm excited. I, I just want to go everywhere you're gonna love.

[Joe Jensen]

One thing I love about Thailand is you just, you get to live like a king. Like, everything's so dirt cheap there. It's like you can just really go all out and just enjoy yourself, which is nice. If people know me, I'm pretty frugal. Some say cheap, but it's like, you know, in Hawaii, you know, you're, you're, it's tropical. But man, it's expensive to do anything but in Thailand you can just go to town. So you're going to love it.

[Joseph Griffin]

I love those countries. You make your money in the States and, and when you have that cash flow going, you know, these Airbnbs, these long term rentals, whatever, then you can, I can do things like go live in Puerto Rico. Right? So, yeah, it's, it's lovely.

[Joe Jensen]

It's a beautiful world. Go create it that way. All right, question number two, Joseph. What book are you currently reading now?

[Joseph Griffin]

So, book that I'm reading right now, man, right now I'm reading a book, Fanatical Prospecting, I think. Yeah, Fanatical prospecting. So I've been really big on and how to win friends and influence people. So I've been really big on learning how to build relationships and whatnot, especially, you know, being a fund manager. So started really diving into how to connect with people and, you know, how to influence people. And basically, I don't want to say like, how to get your way, but how to win the Jedi Mind game, basically.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah, well, and the cool thing, a lot about what you've talked about, if anybody's ever read the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which is like one of my all time favorite classics. It talks about win, win or no deal. And, and I just bring that up because I feel like all the things you talked about throughout this whole podcast, I'm like, that's a win win. That's a win win. Like, that's so good for the person that's getting foreclosed on. Like, that's so good for this person. And you like. I love win, win situations because you can go in and it's like you can sell someone on it, you can influence in them and it's like, it's such a good, it's so much easier to do if, if they're going to be stoked on it. You know what I mean? So, anyway, I love that. All right, question number three. What? Content, book, podcast, course, YouTube channel, et cetera. Besides, anything we're involved with, what would you recommend people check out?

[Joseph Griffin]

So I would recommend everyone to go download Clubhouse. It's an app. It's on iPhone, it's on Android. You literally go there, and it's like networking right through your phone. We have stages and. And literally, like, I can make a tax deed room. I'll open up the room. Almost like Twitter spaces, right? I'll open up the room, and I can just get started talking on various topics. You can come in, you can raise your hand, come on stage, ask questions. That app has. We've done so much networking on that app last year. I have so many wholesale connections. I have so many real estate agent connections, lenders, like, private money, all from that app.

[Joe Jensen]

Wow. So it's called just Clubhouse. What do it look like? So they know they're buying. They're downloading the correct one. It's.

[Joseph Griffin]

It's like a bunch of people. I think it updates all the time, but it looks like. Yeah, it's like three girls laughing right now. But it's. It's okay. It's a good one.

[Joe Jensen]

Yeah, I'm just looking up right now. That sounds super awesome. So just Clubhouse. Oh, yeah, it's like the first one that pops up if you type in Clubhouse. One word and it's. Yeah, it's like a black and white photo, right?

[Joseph Griffin]

Yep. Yeah.

[Joe Jensen]

That's sweet. Yeah, check it out, everybody. That's cool. That's a good recommendation. I like that. All right, man, well, we'll ask you one more question, let you get out of here. You're about to pull out your phone, and all of the phones in the whole world are about to buzz, vibrate, and ring because they're getting a message from the tax deed Wolf, what's that message gonna say?

[Joseph Griffin]

Man, that message is gonna say the best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. Get started. That's all it's gonna say. Like you said earlier, people are just waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for the right moment. Like, the right moment was. Was five years ago. You should have already started, you know? So just get started.

[Joe Jensen]

Love it, man. Can't say it any better than that. Well, we'll let you go. This is Joe Jensen signing off for the Real Estate Investing School podcast, reminding you to get started.