The Most Dwanderful Real Estate Podcast Ever!

Master the Tax Lien Market with Expert Angela Duncan

• Dwan Bent-Twyford/Angela Duncan • Season 5 • Episode 382

Share episode

Send us a text

Unlock the secrets to stress-free real estate investing with the guidance of Angela Duncan, founder of Empower HER Money. Angela shares her compelling transition from the active grind of property flipping and rentals to the more serene and lucrative world of tax lien investing. Forget the headaches of property management and discover how you can enjoy steady returns with minimal effort.

Throughout this engaging episode, we dive deep into the mechanics of tax lien investing, inspired by the acclaimed book "The 16% Solution." Angela demystifies the process, particularly in the competitive Florida market where interest rates can soar up to 18%. Learn the exact steps from homeowners defaulting on property taxes to investors earning guaranteed interest upon repayment. With Angela's personal anecdotes and strategic tips, you'll understand how to create a robust "buy box" that aligns with your financial goals while avoiding common pitfalls.

Finally, Angela reveals expert strategies for navigating tax lien auctions, emphasizing the importance of meticulous due diligence and the value of partnerships and mentorships. By focusing on one investment niche, you can become proficient while still appreciating the broader real estate landscape. Tune in to gain practical advice on bidding tactics, risk management, and the power of research, ensuring you're well-prepared to succeed in the world of tax lien investing.

Thanks again for listening. Don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave a FIVE-STAR review.

Head to Dwanderful right now to claim your free real estate investing kit.

And follow:

http://www.Dwanderful.com
http://www.facebook.com/Dwanderful
http://www.Instagram.com/Dwanderful
http://www.youtube.com/DwanderfulRealEstateInvestingChannel

Make it a Dwanderful Day!

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Hey everybody, welcome to Tthe most wonderful real estate podcast ever. I am so excited to have a guest today, miss Angela Duncan, and we're going to find out all about her here in just a moment. So I am Dwan Benton Twyford, aka Dwanterful. You can find me at Dwanterfulcom If you opt in on my website. I have some free training information and some free e-books and some fun things like that. I went from a broke single mom to a millionaire real estate investor, so that's what we're here to teach you. It's all about money and life and living and investing and all the things that you need to know. Our motto at Dwonderful is people before profits, so if it resonates with you, you're at the right place. I'm your girl, I think this is your girl too, and we're just going to have some fun and find out how things are. So, ms Angela, how are you today?

Angela Duncan:

I'm doing amazing. Thank you so much for having me today.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And first I want to tell you you are so beautiful.

Angela Duncan:

Oh, thank you. For those that are maybe watching, zoom has some great filters they do see this lipstick not real, it's zoom.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Once I discovered I could put on some lipstick, I was a little bit cheeky so I was like, oh but, but I do actually have on the actual makeup today but, I love the zoom filter. It's like, oh, look at this flawless skin that I don't have anyplace else on my body, but I still love it. So how are you today?

Angela Duncan:

I'm doing great here in Miami. It's super hot right now, but you know, it's partly why we live in Florida, is we get the sunshine all year long.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, we do. I love Florida. Well, we'd like to start off and have a quick toast. I am drinking some live enzyme. What do you have?

Angela Duncan:

Just water for me today, good water.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Okay, cheers, everyone, grab your drink and I tell everyone at the beginning of every show, everyone just like take a deep breath and like give yourself one of those stretches, like shake off all the negativity and just hang out with us and open your mind and just have a good time. We're gonna laugh, we're gonna talk and we're gonna learn. So, miss angela, we just kind of like to throw people to the wolves over here. So what I want you to do is just very, very briefly, just tell us who you are, all the ways to reach you on social media, and that's about it. We're just going to. We just really want to know what's your deal. Then I'm going to ask you some questions and see how you came to be Angela Duncan, who's on my podcast today.

Angela Duncan:

OK, sounds great. Well, my name is Angela Duncan. Empower Her Money is my brand, and you can find me on Instagram, linkedin, Facebook and you have a podcast as well, called empower her money and on YouTube. So those are all the social media channels you can find me.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

They easy enough and that was really great. So I like some people still go on. I'm like okay, I just said like a minute I have, I have questions here and I didn't have to ask questions.

Angela Duncan:

So we have. We have this great thing called Google. So if you really want to find someone, just Google their name. We'll keep it simple.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That's what I always tell people. It's like listen, it's Dwan-der-ful. If you just type it in, there's 80,000 pages about me. You don't even have to remember Dwan Bent-on Twyfer, just Dwan-der-ful, and I'm literally everywhere All right. So, um, and about your YouTube, do you do um weekly videos calls? What do you? How do you do on YouTube?

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, so we do a lot of short videos, but Monday through Friday the podcast is posted, so there's hundreds of thousands of videos on YouTube. Lots of education about money videos on YouTube.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Lots of education about money. Nice Thanks, nice Okay. So it's empower her money. So we talk about money. So what is something I'm new? I'm listening, I'm thinking about investing or not. I don't know what I'm doing. What do I not know about money?

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, so one of the main things that I love to talk about, I'm a passive investor, I'm conservative, I don't want to spend a ton of time and I've been through many real estate cycles. So what I love to talk about is tax lien investing and teaching people about this avenue that not a lot of folks seem to know about and I don't find a lot of education on YouTube on that specific topic. But if you want to get into the real estate space and perhaps don't have a ton of time and you want to be more conservative and passive, then it's a great opportunity for you to learn more, to see if it's a right fit for you.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And you know what I got to tell you tax lien investing. Hardly anyone ever does talk about that. I mean, I've had my podcast for five years. I probably haven't had five guests that talk about that, and years I probably haven't had five guests that talk about that, and it's a really great way, and people. I think it's one of the things that people don't know it exists, so tell us about it. So, tax lien investing so if I'm new again, I'm a new, I don't have very much. I'm listening to you on YouTube. I'm like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to take my first step. What would that look like for me?

Angela Duncan:

That was me about 10 years ago. I had been in real estate for a while, was doing the flipping, was doing single family rentals and honestly, just got tired of picking up the phone call fixing a toilet on Sunday or Christmas. I was like there's got to be a better way for me to invest Maybe not as great as returns as some of the other avenues, but to make it less of my time. And so I'm a numbers person. I picked up a book called the 16% Solution. It's still out there. It's not my book, but that was the first book that I started thinking and learning about tax lien investing and obviously, well, I can earn 16%. How, where, where do you sign up, right? So I read through this book and I started to just get more education. Obviously, this was a little bit, you know, 10 years ago, not as much information online. So I'm very much a book person. But what I realized is in the state of Florida, you can earn up to 18% interest for being a passive investor, right? So I'm going to break it down and try and make tax liens very simple to understand.

Angela Duncan:

If you own a home, you have to pay property taxes, whether it's a condo, townhome, house, commercial building. The government wants their money and it's due every year, right? So, whether or not you have it, the government is going to want that money from you in the form of property taxes because, well, they take that money and they have it budgeted. They have to pay for things like employee salaries, police officers, teachers, building roads right, they have all of these expenses and they count on you, as the homeowner, to pay your taxes on time. And something happens in your life you get sick, or perhaps someone passes away, you lose a job and you just can't pay those property taxes.

Angela Duncan:

Well, those property taxes in the form of a tax lien get auctioned off to people who want to invest. So say I come in and, duann, you haven't paid your property taxes, which I know in the past 20 years is not the case but you haven't paid your property taxes and the government says, hey, I need help, come online, bid on this tax lien and I will pay you an interest rate that we're going to agree upon upfront. So I come by that piece of paper, the government gets their money to pay their bills and in return, when the property owner finally pays their taxes back, I get a guaranteed interest rate that the government and I have already discussed as soon as I bid on that property. So you know what you're gonna get going into interest rate and it will come some point in the future that's the unknown factor. But it's a way for you not to have to go out and do a whole lot of research and spend a lot of time on it, because the auction only happens once a year.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, it's funny, I love tax claims. When I first started I've been investing for 30 years, so a million years ago I would go down. I was in Broward County in Fort Lauderdale, and so I would go to the courthouse and, like you know, bid on the houses. And then someone I met a woman there and I would say it could have been you, but she was my age at that time, so it definitely can't be you. And she only bought tax liens and she just had a stack and she would go bid on these liens and I remember talking to her a few times.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I remember buying a couple of tax liens but I never I don't know, I guess because I was just really into actually rehabbing at that time. I never really dipped my toe in it and stayed in it, but I knew about it. But now one thing this woman was doing is she was buying tax liens on there's a lot of vacant property, like in Fort Lauderdale, like west. It was still kind of swampy and they were building towns like Wellington and things like that, and there was a lot of vacant property that people bought thinking it was going to be some gold mine someday and it never did so. They just let it go and she was buying land and keeping it for just the price of the tax lien.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I was like, dang, that seems like a really good thing to do, so so I love that. But I and I have now that you're saying that it's like I should do that because I haven't done that for such a long time, and I kind of it's one of those things like I've kind of for me personally, kind of just like I think, because we got so busy on our buildings, I just kind of like put that behind us Like you know what Tax liens are a great way to make money and it's guaranteed whatever the interest rate amount is is guaranteed.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, and so that what you hit on is really important. You've got to decide if this is going to be a route that you want to start investing. What does your buy box look like? For example, mine, I'm looking for a homestead property because my strategy is just to earn that interest rate. I don't necessarily want to foreclose on that property, I don't want to own it, I don't want to flip it, I don't want to do that, I want to be as passive as possible.

Angela Duncan:

So my buy box I'm looking for a homestead property. I want it to be a house. I don't like to work with HOAs, so staying away from condos and townhomes. And then, um, you know, I look for areas in which is still growing that people want to live in. So then hopefully, that homeowner wants to live in that area. They're going to eventually pay off their property taxes. That's my goal is for them to pay it off and for me to get paid my interest rate. So it's very important for you to decide what your buy box is. But that was a great opportunity for that person picking up vacant land, knowing that this is a city that's growing and when she goes through that foreclosure route she's going to own that property just for the cost of the tax this woman.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I wish I could remember her name, but have to call someone down in ort Lauderdale and ask her again. She had so many tax things. I was like I don't understand, because, you know, I thought you know, I was so new, like I knew, knew, knew. Like no one trained me, I learned by the seat of my pants. I barely even knew, and when I found out I could go to the like, the courthouse steps, you know as they call it, and bid on houses, like you could just go buy it like I don't, like I couldn't even. I was so new. I was like I wish I would have had someone like me, or even half of what I know.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

At that time I was literally seated in my pants person and I think, because I was so new I'm hearing about the courthouse staffs which I, by the way I never got one single house. So, all the ways in the entire world to buy houses, I think I have purchased a house every way known to man, except I've never won one at the courthouse steps, and I don't it's because I don't pay enough. I go to like there, I have an exact number, this is all I'm paying, and then someone overbids me. And then, of course, you had the problems 30 years ago with, like, the boys club, where all the guys go and, even though they're not supposed to, they all make deals who's going to get what house? And I was like, but now I'm like you know what? I think I need to just buy one at the courthouse steps, even if I overpay for it, just to say I did it.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It's the one thing I've never done and I did have a couple of tax liens. But what I learned just and just as my smidge of knowledge compared to what you have if it's a home, like you said, a homestead. So I like the fact that you said it's a homestead, because if it's a house, if they haven't paid their taxes when the time period's up, the bank is not going to let the house go for the taxes. The bank will at least pay them if they're taking the house back and so for everyone, and you're probably going to touch on it. But the thing about taxes that's great is that if someone, the houses, go to the tax sale and maybe it's two years before whoever can buy them or before they lose the property, the bank always steps up because they're not going to let a $200,000 house go for $5,000 worth of taxes, but they do let them go to the tax sale. Sometimes they just step in before it's due. Is that correct?

Angela Duncan:

Yep, that's correct, but the tax lien is in first position. So even though the bank is going and bidding on the property, they have already calculated that they're going to have to pay me as the investor back, which is fine. I don't want to own the property, so let them go bid on it, take the property back, pay me what I'm due and then they can deal with paying for the cost of the foreclosure, bidding on the property, then disposing of the property. That's sure they're likely to make more money than me, but I already know what I'm making going into it and I'm fine with that because I don't want to do all that additional work.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That's right and that is. The nice thing is that with tax liens the bank it does move into the first position. So you have this whatever $300,000 mortgage and maybe the tax lien is what $10,000? It moves in front of the mortgage. So if the bank somehow went under the rug and they missed it, you would own that entire house free and clear for the tax liens, which is what I think my friend used to do on all this vacant land that she was snapping up like that. But she ended up with a lot of swamp land.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, and we did see a lot of that back when we were you know. You saw the bigger banks kind of merging and acquisition with the smaller banks. Some of the paperwork would get lost in the shuffle, right. So I could do the foreclosure, own the property, and then I have to let the lender know, but at that point I already have it. So too bad for you. But they go after the homeowner. At that point they don't come after me because I'm first position.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yep, you're in first position. That's exactly right. That is exactly right. So now, when you bid on these, how are you? Are you doing the or sending someone to the courthouse and bidding on the tax? Liens?

Angela Duncan:

This is where the advance in technology has made this so much simpler. The auctions for tax liens are online. So when it comes to the actual bidding process, you're going to put which tax liens you want to acquire and the max or the minimum interest rate that you're going to accept for the property. So you and I we could bid on the same property online. If I'm willing to take 10%, but you said that you wanted 12, obviously the guy with me, because they're going to pay me less. But the whole tax lien investing bid is now online. There's a lot that you need to do in front of the auction time, but that's why the time period is about two months from the time they list the properties that are available for tax lien auction to the time that they close the auction.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Nice, and so do you buy only in Florida, or do you buy around the country?

Angela Duncan:

I only do Florida because part of my own process is that I want to drive by the property. I want to make sure there's a home there. I don't want to end up with land or something because it's possible that there was a fire and the tax owner took the insurance payout and just left and they no longer want the property. Right, it's possible. So I'm going to drive by and at least make sure there's a house there, because if I did have to go through that foreclosure process, at the end of the day, I need something that I can turn around and sell quickly.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, I think if it was a nice piece of land in a good area, even if it had burned to the ground, somebody would probably still take it.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, but you don't know, Could it be like a tiny sliver of land that is not big enough to build on, or maybe there was a rare turtle that was on the land and now you can't build on it. So I'm looking for the physical property to be there.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So that is the stuff that people need to know. So if someone is listening, they go. I didn't know something couldn't sell because a rare turtle was on it. You obviously, I'm going to assume you teach people and you train people how to look for all, because this is one of those things like any kind of investing, you need to know kind of all these pieces to this puzzle to be successful at this. Because it could be that was one of the things I remember my friend would run into was it would be these tiny pieces of land in between other land and they couldn't put a sewer or anything. And I was like I don't understand, like what were you buying? And she's like, well, I thought I was getting this but it was not, and so she ended up with, I think, a lot of things she couldn't use. But then you know you get the guy next to you that wants a little bit more land and you've got it and I do remember buying.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

She was kind of buying in the swampy areas. Um, I do remember her getting a lot of things that she couldn't build on or couldn't put a sewer because it was too close to the other house or something. So someone would definitely need to learn all the ins and outs like that.

Angela Duncan:

Right, you need to know in that county what's the minimum parcel size in order to build. But I mean if you can get it cheap enough and then you sell it to the neighbor and they can just combine the lots and make their property more it which I loved about what you said when you went to the auctions you knew your max price and you walked away if it went above that, because sometimes you get in this bidding process they call it the eBay effect where you're bidding against other people and you're just doing it because you're competitive. Well, that doesn't help your bank account, right. So you hit it on the nail when you said you've got to have that price in mind and don't go above it, because if you've done your research properly, that's the number that you need to hit in order for you to be profitable. Otherwise, walk away. It is.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And you know I am my husband and I both are that really crazy competitive person, and up in the mountains in Colorado they have auctions online from time to time and the last couple auctions, you, you know we're bidding on this house and I don't know it was up to like 275 or something like that. Then someone bid a thousand. I'm like, oh so then we bid a thousand and the next thing, you know, it's just going up in these thousand dollar increments because you're getting to like the value and I'm like I told bill.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I said, damn, why don't we and I always write my number down on a piece, like I write it on a piece of paper and I circle it. This is it. Because I'll be like, oh, just one more thousand. But it's not one more thousand because he, they're gonna bid. Then it's two more thousand.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And the last one I really wanted that house so bad. It's like you know what, let's just bid a little bit more. So we bid up like three or four more times and then the other person still kept bidding and I was like, oh, and I was so upset I thought, okay, eight bids ago is when I should have said no, and I'm really good about sticking to my guns. But sometimes like you, just I don't know, you're right, you, you just get like in the frenzy and you're like, come on and you're trying to get the property. And I didn't get it.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

But then, interestingly enough, it came back up on the auction block up there. I can't remember the name of that, hudson and Marshall, I think, was the name. I think they merged with somebody else now and I said, bill, bill, bill, look, it's the house again. I said why don't we just like contact the people directly See if we can buy it before it goes up and offer them what we were going to pay before. And they took it and we bought it. Nice. And I was like I ended up with it anyway. But I got caught up in the frenzy because it had been a minute since I'd done an auction and it's really hard to stick to your guns. Yeah, absolutely, that's a good way for me.

Angela Duncan:

It's a good way to build out your team. If you know that about yourself, that you could be the emotional buyer, then hire someone else to go do your bidding for you, or perhaps as part of your team. That that's their job is to go bid. You're doing all the backend research and then they go to the auction house and they spend the time to do the bidding because they're not as emotional as that. You know that you are.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I am. I get caught up in the frenzy especially. Do you remember the days when they used to have, like at a big hotel they'd have all those big FHA auctions and like hundreds of investors would come in person and bid? I used to lose my mind. I would look at all the houses. My partner and I would have all written down the ones we want, what we're going to pay, but then you're in there and like everyone's in the room and everyone's got a little auctioneer and everyone's got a paddle, and it's like it's hard.

Angela Duncan:

And I started. You know, I can start questioning myself like maybe I didn't run my numbers correctly? What do they know that I don't know? Why are they going higher than me? And you can kind of get into that you know downward spiral, and then you start bidding higher and you walk away and maybe you get an asset that you overpaid for and that's obviously not the goal for this investment.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It's not, but auctions are so much fun and doing them online. I like doing the ones the houses online. Doing them online like that. That'd be fun too.

Angela Duncan:

Well, and it's like a, submit it and you wait and see, but you submit it first and then you just wait.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So what is like in the state of Florida? What's the highest interest that can be charged for tax lien?

Angela Duncan:

Yep. So in Florida the minimum is 5% and the highest is 18%.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Okay, so then five. So basically, if a hundred people submit it, one person says I'll take 18 or 12 or 10 or whatever they open it. Whoever is willing to pay the least, they win.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, whoever puts in for the least amount of interest rate typically will be the winner.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, so people would have to really, like you said, really have a point, like I need to stand my ground at this number, because if you're making 5% and it sits there for two years, not that that's a bad thing, but, depending on the amount of money, you could have done something else with the money. Yeah, absolutely. And don't all the states? I think all the states have tax liens, don't they?

Angela Duncan:

No, some of them don't do tax liens. They'll actually go through the foreclosure process and sell the deed to the property. But that will be an in-person auction when that occurs.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

And they do them, I know, on commercial buildings, houses, land, everything.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, everybody owes taxes to the government, so they're going to collect it. Whether or not you're going to pay it, someone else will come in and pay it for you.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, so then when the bank or the person steps up and goes okay, now I'm ready to get back on track, they pay it off and then you get your money back, plus whatever interest that you collected.

Angela Duncan:

Correct, yes.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So that is really a fun way. That is like a fun passive way to make money. I should do that here in Iowa. Now we're here, we're spending so much time in this little town. There's so many vacant buildings sitting around here, I think that yeah, and Iowa I believe.

Angela Duncan:

So, depending on how long the homeowner or property owner goes without paying, I think their interest rate, if I remember correctly, is up to 24% in Iowa.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Well, now I'm going to have to do some checking. I may have to call you myself for a little bit of coaching.

Angela Duncan:

Hey, let's do some investing together self with a little bit of coaching. Hey, let's do some investing together. If you're around to see stuff, you know that's a great opportunity 24% is really good.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

You know, I always tell people I say listen. You know, if they're following me, it's like hey, listen, I can teach you these things, but I can't teach somebody everything. I just can't. And if you think you can teach somebody everything, you should not be teaching, because you're going to hurt more than you're going to help. Most people, I think and that's why, like, I love to have people like you on, it's like, hey, I've done that, but it's been so long. I could explain the concept to a person, but I couldn't help them actually do it because I would be learning as I was doing. So I really like to have people come on that do things that I don't do. But then I get get excited, I'm like, okay, I should do that. But then I think, no, no, no, now I just stay within my focus of what I'm doing, because then I'll be all over the map.

Angela Duncan:

Right. So I mean, that's the big thing about real estate investing. There's so many avenues that you can pick and choose from that. Just pick one. Learn, become a student, find a mentor partner with someone who's been doing it for a while, and then you can go off on your own. But just pick one lane and stick to it, because if it's profitable for you, then why else are you spending?

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

your time. Yeah, we do, we still do. Uh, we do two-day workshops a lot. I just did one in vegas two weekends ago and I mean, there was people there from every, just interested in everything in the world, and I said, listen, it's okay to learn a little bit about everything, but you're not going to want to do everything because you're going to find something that you really like and you go, wow, that really like makes me feel fulfilled. I really like this.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Find the thing that you like, but know about the other things. So if a deal comes across your plate that's not in your realm, you can say, hey, I could give this to Angela, you can give it over. Or if you're wanting to buy single family homes and someone comes along with a multi-unit, you can say, hey, I can give that to these people. And so it's good to know a little bit about everything. But I always tell people don't try to be an expert on every single thing, because I feel like people that try to do that miss a lot of things, because they're maybe too all over the map and the opportunities probably just fly by them that they don't even see because they don't have enough focus on what they're doing yeah, absolutely agree with you 100 on that one yeah, I do too.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

So I mean, I love doing all of it. And now that I'm taught we're talking, I'm just like, oh, but then in reality I probably won't do it because I'd have to learn so much. And right now I'm up to like literally my eyeballs rehabbing these 20 buildings here in the town. That's like, oh my gosh, I'm so busy right now. But, yeah, I like that. But I like taxing back. Then I haven't even thought about that for a while. That's a really good thing to do because it's very, it's not risky. You're going to get your money back. You're going to get it back with some interest. So I think, once you learn the steps to do it, it is a good way to be completely passive.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, well, maybe look for the properties that are in the immediate vicinity of what you're doing on remodeling, because if there's another building that you're not going to be a part of your project, see if they have paid their taxes, and maybe they haven't. So while you're there and you're doing that rehab for the other projects, you go through that process and maybe you end up with that property and you're just adding it to the overall portfolio of what you're already working on now.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I'm a hundred percent going to do that, though there's a couple of buildings around here boarded up and they've been boarded up forever, ever, ever, like 10 years, I'm like. Hmm, I'm thinking I may have to do a little bit of investigation.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, yeah. Here we can go online and I can check to see how many years or if they're delinquent on their property taxes. So it'll be something that you can do, part of your research, so that when the auction comes up you can already have your list ready.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Fun. Now, when you go online like that, can everyone go? Do you have to pay for a service? How does that work for people?

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, so in Florida it's free. The online auction is free. I can check Hillsborough Tax Assessor. You know that's one of the counties I look at. I can see if their property tax has been paid for the previous years. And that's also part of my buy box is. I want to be the first year in Florida. It takes a couple of years for it to foreclose so you could have one, two, maybe three tax lien certificates out there. I want to be first in line because for me I feel more comfortable that I'm going to get paid first. It's possible that all three get paid, but it's also possible that whoever comes in and does the foreclosure and wins the bid, if not enough money is on the bid, then some of the other tax lien holders could potentially not get paid. So I go back to what is my buy box and how can I be as conservative as possible, as passive as possible, and then I only buy within my box.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

That's good. I really I love that. I love that. Now tell me I asked you this before we started the money on the wall behind you. Tell me the concept of all the different kinds of money.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah. So for me, I like the visual aspect of currency because I grew up in poverty and when you grew up in poverty, you don't have money. No one teaches you about money. You can have some negative, like emotional, connection to money. So when people start, you know, talking to me and I can feel that scarcity mindset coming from them, I want to remind them that it's just a piece of paper, does not care who you are man, woman, what your upbringing was, how much money you have has absolutely no tie to that. It's just a tool that you're going to use to help reach your financial goals. And so when you can see it in a visual aspect, you can touch it, feel it. You're like, oh, just like my pen over here. It's just a tool. So let's shift that mindset so we can focus more on obtaining money to get to your goals, versus being scared of losing something because you didn't have it when you grew up.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yep, no, I get that. So I like graduated high school hold on in the seventies. But back then and I was at, lived in Ohio and like a in a like in the country and and no one like we weren't taught about money and having money and managing money. Where I was taught at my time period it was like get out of high school school, go work for general motors, work for the car factory, retire from the man, get married and have kids and that will be your life. I just remember thinking and I actually did work at a factory for like two weeks and I thought why would somebody want me to do this? This is the worst thing that's ever happened. I'm only 18. I'm like this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. It's horrible. Who would want me to work here, you know, until I'm? Because you know, when you're 18, 60 is like almost dead. It's like who would want me to work until I die? But I did it and I thought, wow, that's insane that people like want that on purpose.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

But I didn't know anything about money. So when I first started investing, I had to not only learn real estate, I had to learn money. I had to hire bookkeepers. I didn't know how to balance my checkbook. Like it was really shocking how much I did not know about money and that's like money literally makes the world go round. You have to have it for everything, and so I made sure that my kids are like financially literate. But I had to learn. I had to read so many books. I took classes, I took classes at my church. I read book, book, book, book, book. I hired accounts and CPAs and all the people and I was like, just help me understand, I don't want to do it, I just want to understand it so you can do all the paperwork for me. But I just feel like the schools just don't teach a lot of financial literacy.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, I agree with you 100%, and even the way that we sit in a classroom has never changed, right? You sit in a row, you have a leader that's in front of you that's telling you what to do, what to think, what to read, what tests you're going to take, and you abide by their rules. It doesn't allow you to be independent. It's really dependent on the person in front of you which was really conforming you to be an employee to an employer. Right, that's how we were brought up and it hasn't changed. I mean my daughter's school. She went through a private school and they allowed these movable seats, which really helped them to work in teams. But if you look at the traditional classroom in the public school, it's still exactly the same, but it's teaching them still to be employees instead of entrepreneurs that can create jobs and experiences and wealth for other people. You know there's so many aspects of how we're brought up and taught that hasn't changed in the hundred years that we've had school system.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

It really hasn't. It's too bad. I've gone to some of my high school reunions and some of the teachers, like we were in high school, they were just in their 20s and they were like, oh, we used to smoke pot all day, like they were stoned. It was the 70s, they were all stoned and teaching us. It's like, really, that's how we learned. It's like no wonder.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

All right, let's jump topics for a minute. And I love everything you love about real estate. I love what you do. It's a really good niche for people. It really is a good niche and I'm excited to have you on talking about that. Like I said, in the last five years I probably only interviewed gosh less than I don't even know a tiny handful of people that do tax liens. So I'm glad to have that because I feel like that's something that people just don't know about. Like you'd really have to meet a person to tell you about that, and I mean, unless you know like you, you've studied and you went to college and everything about finances and real estate. You know all the things, but I don't think most people start like that.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, if you don't want to own individual tax liens, there are funds that you can be an investor in that go and do all the work for you. Obviously, the returns aren't as great as if you did it yourself. And about 80% of tax liens do go to funds because their target is a little bit lower than maybe you as an individual. They might be willing to take 8% versus. You know you're looking for 10%, but they're not going to pick up everything. So just keep that in mind when you're bidding. And I always tell people too, like, if you're bidding, don't get overwhelmed in the bidding process, because if you bid on it and you win it, the county expects you to pay right away. So only bid at the max of what you think you can have in the bank, because you're not going to win every one of them that's probably a fact there. But if you do win 80% of them, make sure you've got that money in the bank, because you're going to have to pay it right away.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah, when we used to go to the courthouse in Broward County and bid on houses, I think you had to have like a $2,500 cashier's check, but you had to come back with the rest of the money that day, like that day, and I was like so I was always like Ooh, I don't know, I don't want to bid too much of like you know you're bidding like a $50,000 house. You have to have all the money. Like you can't go out and get it and borrow. Like you gotta come back that day. That was always I still bid, but that was always scary. Like what if I get it? And then like I don't have an and you think you have enough, but then you end up you've even two or 3000 over. Could like kick your deal out? Yeah, absolutely so. Let's jump topics. What is your favorite band of all time?

Angela Duncan:

Favorite band, Linkin Park. Oh, I like Linkin Park. Yes, I actually was in the car with my daughter when the lead singer was announced that he passed away and I sat there and I cried and she looked at me. She was too young to really understand the emotional attachment you can get to music and she's like you don't even know him. Why are you crying? And then she had this big crush on Shawn Mendes later, a few years later, and she's like mom, I get it now. I'm emotionally attached to this person.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

You are. I know it's so funny. It's like I feel the same way Anyone from my decade like. When Michael Jackson died I think I cried for a week. I was so dead. I was like, but I was gonna marry him when I was 10, like, and you're so emotionally attached to these people. It's like golly, if you really do. And my kids all get, even my grandkids. Now they're, they're little, they're two, four, eight and nine. But I'm teaching them. Well, actually I'm teaching them about music from the 70s, because I can safely put on something from the 70s and there's no cursing in it country music would be another one for you, and country.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Yeah. So because this is 70s, is a pre, like you didn't even say damn in a song. It's pre cursing music. And then my son, he's got rammstein. I'm like the hell's wrong with you. These kids are little kids, you can't listen to that stuff. And it's like good lord. So I'm teaching them 70s music but unfortunately a lot of those people have passed on. So they're like well, we want to meet michael jackson. It's like he's in heaven. Like we love tom petty. It's like, yeah, he's in heaven too. And then it's like, and I think, well, maybe I should need to teach them something where they're not all dead, because you know they're kids, but but they get it too. What's your favorite food?

Angela Duncan:

um japanese food. I'm my I'm a quarter japanese. My mom was born in japan. I had the chance to go to japan in 2019 and I absolutely love real japanese food I bet I love japanese food too.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I'm a major sushi, but I imagine the food there is like unbelievable yeah, and and their sushi is different.

Angela Duncan:

We get a lot of frou-frou. You don't get cream cheese and asparagus and stuff like that in Japan.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I know I do like the cream cheese. I like all the sauce. It's like if I went over there I'd probably be like what are they eating and what's your favorite part of the day? What's your like from the morning to the night? Where's your favorite part of the day?

Angela Duncan:

I love the morning. I feel like I'm most refreshed and then that's like the part of my day I can control and I have a morning routine that I'm very strict about, so the morning time for me is important.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Good, good, good, all right. So what is your biggest goal that you're working on right now, and how can the Dwanterful family help you reach that goal, angela?

Angela Duncan:

Yes, so I want to launch my own tax lien fund, and so I'm working on that with an attorney. What does that look like? I really wanna build out great systems so that we can take in money and help people have passive income without having to do all the work of the tax lien, but still being able to teach that too.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Well, that is a great goal. I love that goal. I'm going to claim that goal for you and everyone that listens. Listen. This would be a great thing to be involved in Launching your own tax lien fund. I'm going to help claim that for you, girl.

Angela Duncan:

Oh, thank you. I do have a free giveaway, if you'll allow me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, if you go to morewithangelacom backslash fire, I did write a short, but I did write a starter to the course ebook that you can get for free. So morewithangelacom backslash fire and it's yours for free. It's a great way for you to kind of get educated on what tax lien investing could look like and see if this might be something you want to pursue. I'm going to sign up and get one today.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

I like to get all the free stuff? Yeah, so that's what I was going to ask you. Do you have anything you want to offer? Anything you want to give out, any place you want to send people directly, anything at all that can help them on their journey? Yeah, thank you so much. Okay, so anything else you want to give out or talk about, or any place you want to send people, what? Tell me your YouTube one more time.

Angela Duncan:

YouTube is empower her money, Instagram empower her money, and then Angela Duncan on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Nice, nice, nice. I love it. And the other one is more with Angelacom backslash fire, okay, fire. Good, I'm going to go get one of those today.

Angela Duncan:

Yay, I love to get all the. I like all the things. Yes, I saw on your website too. You got freebies, so I'm downloading yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Well, you know, we got to get people stuff to get them started, because, you know, I started from a place of no knowledge. Well, actually, you know, going back I mean, I've been investing for almost 35 years there was not even google, so nobody had a website, there was no Google. There's like that stuff didn't exist. So when people tell me today like oh, duann, it's so hard, it's like I don't even want to hear from you. I did not have GPS, I had to use map books. Everything was done by hand, by driving, by phone calls. There was no looking things up, like that didn't even exist.

Angela Duncan:

When I hear someone complaining, I'm like no, yeah, I used to print out like Google maps to when I was a real estate agent to put properties in order. So I knew how to get from one property to the next property without having to pull out that big you know map book. So definitely understand that too. But you know, a great great thing about freebies is because if you are interested in a topic, this allows for you to get some knowledge and then determine whether or not you want to get more knowledge, instead of going out and buying like a thousand dollar course on tax liens. This gives you an opportunity to learn a little before you take that bigger investment.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Now I agree with you. I'm all about freebies too, so I love that. Ok. So one more thing I have for you, but just real quick to everybody else that Okay. So one more thing I have for you, but just real quick to everybody else. If this is your first time listening to the most wonderful real estate podcast ever, if you laughed or liked anything, or like her music choices or Japanese food with us, or just anything at all, I want you to subscribe. I want you to leave a five-star review. I also want you to go to YouTube. Want you to leave a five-star review. I also want you to go to YouTube, just YouTube.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Forward slash, do Wonderful Real Estate and subscribe. Hit the bells, all of the things. Follow both of us everywhere, because we're here to help you and educate you and teach you things that we have learned and specialized in since we started, and there's no reason to try to go out and reinvent the wheel, like all the real estate wheels have been invented. So work with people that you feel like you align with and let us help you cut your learning curve. People like the two of us like, literally, we can cut your learning curve by decades, so do that Also, I'm at Dwanterful everywhere, like Facebook, linkedin I don't know Instagram Threads, just Dwanterful.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Everything is Dwanterful. Linkedin, I don't know Instagram threads just everything is wonderful. Okay so, angela. One last thing is I want you to give a supporting word of wisdom, but just one single word Research. Okay, research. I think you may have been the first person that gave me research, but I love it. Okay so, everyone. So my people that listen on the regular now that I tell them to take it like a little yellow sticky and put the word research and put it up on the bathroom mirror. And research is the word of the word of the week and the wonderful world is research. So just tell us what that means to you.

Angela Duncan:

Yeah, before you decide to put your money anywhere, you definitely need to put a great amount of time into research.

Dwan Bent-Twyford:

Couldn't have said it better myself. All right, everybody, thank you for being on. Remember we'll be back next week, same bat time, same bat channel, and remember that the truth is in the red letters. Okay, ciao, angela, thank you, hang on before we go and goodbye, everybody. Have a good week, make lots of money.