Anyone seen the tax sale property informercial?

[speedfreeksteve]

I saw it late last night. Was mildly amusing and had the word scam written all over it. These days informercials like that should have a disclaimer before they show it saying "the following informercial is a scam".

Anyways, here's a link to the name and some reviews on it:

http://www.infomercialratings.com/product/john_beck_free_and_clear

Here's the gist of it. You get a 6 book system for $40. Throughout the informercial they're showing 70-100K houses that people got for under $1000, "free and clear" of a mortgage. The books supposedly tell you how to find these type of deals. They also claim that there's 1.8 million tax sale properties available in the US per year, I'm more than abit skeptical of that. The US has almost exactly 20 times the population of Ontario, and I doubt we have much more than 1000 or so tax sale properties for sale in a year.

Seems that everything in the whole infomercial is a lie. The reviews you can see in that link somewhat confirm that.

Should've known anyways, the opportunities for a private individual to get rich off of tax sales properties are few and far between. Especially in the US when you're competing against professionals that do it for a living.

[RichD]

A big difference in the US is that in some states you can buy a tax lien, there buy circumventing the tax sale all to gether. Basically you lend the delinquent home owner the money to pay his taxes (which is secured by the town) and if he comes up with enough money to pay you back + a high amount of interest he gets to keep his house if not you do. I'm sure it's a lot more involved then that but that's the gist as I understand it.

[twinn]

There is some truth to getting houses for nothing in the US via tax sales, but they are not bargains and have been left behind for a reason.  The American real estate market is a lot different than ours, even a few blocks can mean the difference between being in a pleaseant area or living in the ghetto.  I think that you have to be present at their auctions to win, also, look at some of the houses they have for sale in buffalo or detroit, you can by a house for 10-30 k no problem, the banks are selling them at that cost, but a lot of them have been condemmed by the city/ or have been burnt down/water damage..... They are mostly distressed property and are not ideal investments.  Even the ones that are okay are not as a good a bargain as you think. 

These guys pitching stuff in infomercials are mostly scam artisits, they make money by selling a fantasy............think about how much $ it cost to produce that informerical, buy air time on networks, set up the call/shipping center to produce the orders, probely 25-50K at least, at $1000 a house the guy would own a few city blocks by now.

if its to good to be true it probely is

[ErnestBidder]

  Thanks for posting the URL: it was interesting to go through everyone's ratings, and to see that some were successful when they worked at it. I have made it a practice to pick up these kits at yard sales and flea markets, and have yet to fail to find at least one new piece of info each time. I have saved the URL, & will return from time to time, just to read the comments.
  In Buffalo, you can buy a really good house at a low price, but the resale price is also low, with fewer buyers. I find that there are enough interesting profitable deals here without having to travel elsewhere. We had a Buffalo rental for a while, & were lucky to get out more or less even. When you figure in travelling costs, and the fact that you have to be there during reno work in order to not get ripped off, it's just not worth it. I make more profit here, quicker.