How to Use Tax Deed Investing to Make A Fortune with The Tax Deed Wolf Joseph Griffin

Joseph Griffin: 0:00

The thing that I specialize in is the actual tax deed auction. When I enter into an auction that I purchase these properties, the reason the price is so low because it's the back taxes owed as the opening bid. So people tend to, on average, it's only about $3,000. $2,000-$3,000. When I when that property is mine, immediately, there's no redemption period, the only thing I have to worry about is clearing the title.

Announcer: 0:25

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Jason Muth: 0:48

Welcome to another episode of The Real Estate Law Podcast. And boy, do we have an interesting subject today that we haven't quite covered yet on this podcast. And Rory and I were just talking beforehand, about the very topics we've talked about, you know, we love going deep into real estate, real estate law, lots of ways that you can invest your money, make lots of money, whether it's long term rental short term rentals, if you're wholesaling, if you know, lots of the strategies that are out there, the BRRRR method, etc. Rory, we have not talked about tax deed investing just yet, have we?

Rory Gill: 1:19

Nope. So I'm ready to learn today. I'm in learning mode. This is some different area investing that we've covered before. It's something that I'm aware of in concept, but I don't really know the inner workings of so we'll be learning today together with our listeners about tax deed investing.

Jason Muth: 1:35

Yeah, so we had to go to the best expert that we could find online about tax deed investing. And I think we found a great one. We found the Tax Deed Wolf, Joseph. This is Joseph Griffin from Orlando. How did you get that that nickname,

Unknown: 1:50

Funny story, I used to do network marketing, I was a part of this MLM. And we had this assignment. And it was like to find our animal and my animal I related to the wolf, because I could do it by myself. But you know, I could work well with a team. But if I had to get it done myself, I would still get it done. And that just followed me throughout life. And once I dove into tax deed investing, I just came up with the name. I was like, Man, I should just be the Tax Deed Wolf. No one's ever called themselves this before. Let's do it. And I told my wife and she, you know, most of what spouses would probably be like, What the heck are you talking about? But she was just like, You know what, yeah, that sounds good. I like it.

Jason Muth: 2:30

Sometimes the best names kind of, you know, come from a little brainstorm, and then you just go with it. Like, don't overthink it. You know, if that was your animal that, you know, years ago, you you know, was identified with you. And when you're gonna formulate this business, become the expert in tax deeds, why not be The Tax Deed Wolf, and no one else was doing it makes you original. So that's amazing. Well, welcome to The Real Estate Law Podcast, we're really pleased to have you here as our very first person to speak about tax deed investing. So you know, there's, you've been doing this for how many years? We'd love to get a, you know, kind of intro as to what your background is. And, you know, tell us how you found your way to tax deed investing.

Unknown: 3:07

Definitely. So first off, it's an honor to be the first right and since this niche is this, the niche that I've chosen with tax deeds, it's very, not many people know about it. So it was a awesome niche to get into. And I started my journey 2014 purchased of my first home. So it's been what's that, like, eight years now I suck at math alright? Fun fact. But I do know how to flip properties. Started, started in 2014. That was my first my first purchase. The reason I dove into tax deeds, because it was literally the most affordable property acquisition that there was. The first home I purchase, or the first property I purchased, it was an empty piece of land, I got it for only $3,000.

Jason Muth: 3:51

It's a price point that people can find their way into. And everyone needs a starting point, right? That's how a lot of wholesalers start too. They're just looking to assign contracts. So they're looking for quick ways to make some extra money. You know, so your first deal was a $3,000 property.

Unknown: 4:05

$3,000 property, I sold it for $10,000. So after making $7,000, that was like a month, I was just like, Man, I think I made I made more than I did as a nurse just flipping one property. So then we had this goal to just keep flipping properties. And I had a little bit of money saved up. I had $8,000 in my bank account at the time, and I went on I purchased one for $3,000, one for $1L900. And then I use my VA loan and got another home for zero, no money out of my pocket just got the keys. So I had three homes in under 30 days, and I used less than $5,000. And I was like man, this is this is some good stuff. And I stuck with it.

Rory Gill: 4:48

Let's go see just you know, we're talking about some really strikingly low numbers here. I think a lot of people are probably anxious to just understand the basics. You know, what is this investment strategy and you know, how can you possibly obtain a property for $3,000?

Unknown: 5:02

Yeah, definitely. So in the US, when you own a property, you have to pay property taxes, right. And I'm gonna break this down like so like you said, break this down to like, fifth grade level. You have to pay your property taxes. Now, a lot of times people are always like, well, what about the mortgage? Well when you have a mortgage, we have what's called an escrow account, right? We're paying our property taxes and our insurance in our escrow. If you don't pay, the bank is typically going to foreclose on your home, that's a completely different approach, that's a completely different thing. When you own your home outright, you still have to pay property taxes, and a lot of people don't know this, I don't know if it's just like the lack of home ownership without mortgages. But a lot of people don't know that. If you don't pay your property taxes, typically two to three years, the county's gonna take your property, and you're gonna sell it at an auction. Now, depending on what type of state you live in, you might live in a tax lien state, you might live in a tax deed state, or you might live in a tax redemption deed state. A lot of times people are confused with liens and deeds confused. When you purchase a lien, nothing really says that you're you're getting that property, you're just paying the back taxes for someone and to keep their property, they have to pay you back with interest. When you purchase in a redemption deed state, it's almost the same thing, it's just more understood that you're going to acquire the deed to that property, they still have amount of time to redeem. Now the thing that I specialize in is the actual tax deed auction. When I enter into an auction, and I purchase these properties, the reason the price is so low, because it's it's the back taxes owed is the opening bid. So people tend to, on average, it's about $3,000. $2,000 $3,000. When I when that property is mine, immediately, there's no redemption period, the only thing I have to worry about is clearing the title.

Rory Gill: 6:49

What kind of properties are are being lost for seems like a low balance for property taxes. Are these people who have forgotten to pay their property tax? Are these abandoned properties? What kind of properties come up in the tax lien auctions?

Unknown: 7:04

Good question. So these are typically the worst properties in the neighborhoods, right? And we have to be completely, completely transparent. You're not getting mansions or anything for $3,000. These are the bad apples that need some money. To be honest, the city loves for investors to get these properties and actually turn them around, because they're the ones that are hurting the market. Right? They're the ones that people may even be living in doing drugs, who knows what's going on in some of these houses, and the terrible deeds, right? The home owners, we typically say you know, the death or divorce. Typically, it's a grandparent that passed and, you know, the kids don't want the place, or they don't even have the money to keep up with it. They don't understand, you know how to become a landlord. So they ultimately just let it go. That's typically what I see.

Rory Gill: 7:55

So you know, when you take over a property like this, does this mean that you have to deal with squatters deal with tenants in start the eviction process or the cleanup process? What does that look like if these are properties that are just completely undesirable?

Unknown: 8:10

Yeah, good question. So I don't like to go for properties that are occupied. We typically only go for the vacant properties. This depends on your state on how easy or hard it is to put someone out of their property. But Florida, I will say is actually very easy process to put someone out. We completely try to avoid that. What we do is we're looking for the ones that are vacant, we're looking for the ones that have the most potential. We try to purchase these assets at 60% under fair market value. So if the home's worth $100,000, we need our acquisition to be 40k or less. That's typically our go-to now, to be completely honest with you, Rory, unless you're Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk, these auctions are highest bidder takes all. There's some sharks in there, right? You might go on these auctions. And you think you have a chance. And they're just bidding, bidding bidding. So we take our acquisition off market, we use these tax deed lists as leads. And we go approach property owners and we negotiate our own deals. The cool thing about that is when you win a property at a tax sale auction, the title is clouded. Immediately we win it. So when you approach the previous owner, it's a clean sale. Now it saves us money, because then we don't even have to go get attorneys and do the process was called the quiet title to clear the title on his properties. So there's just so many as some people are listening to this, like, what the heck is this guy talking about? But there's so many things that you have to know in this industry. Like I said, it's so special that you have to be 10 times smarter than everyone else. Sometimes even the title companies that I have to tell them hey, no, this is how we have to do this.

Rory Gill: 9:53

prior to that. So I actually had to go through and track down the old owners realize that they had both passed. Looked up the descendants in a different state and look at the probate proceeding that was there and actually reach out and try to negotiate with four surviving adult children to get them to, you know, accept a relatively small amount. They had no legitimate claim to take it back or anything like that. It wasn't like we were taking title from them, but we had to negotiate and kind of herd the cats to get to get that done and save a year. Otherwise, if we waited one more year, the redemption period would have run, and we would have been able to have title insurance. But it's just an amazing amount of kind of paperwork and bureaucracy combined with creativity for solutions.

Unknown: 10:46

Right? It can be definitely. We have a process now, when when we get these properties, I won a property today, and I can have it sold in just two weeks. And people are like, how do you do that? How to what and so there's some specialized title companies out there that will issue title insurance. And then we know the, of course, you have the quiet title process. But if you can find the previous owner and just get them to sign over that deed, you're gold.

Rory Gill: 11:15

That was the question I had, and how on earth do you do that? But I think you've answered that.

Jason Muth: 11:19

I should say, Rory, you know, you were able to track them down. And it was worth every penny with the amount of money that we gave them, which was like $1,000 bucks for their troubles was kind of what we said. And had we not been able to do that. I mean, this is us, the two of us personally, you know, we're building a house on that lot right now. And you know, last November, we closed a construction loan at 3% for a 30 year fixed loan, that we would not have been able to close this coming November if we had to wait another year, because look where rates went, you know, so I think it you know, that $1,000 right there and the work that you did to kind of track them down, you know, made us a ton of money in the end, in my opinion. So sometimes it's worth the work. I mean, like if you put in the equity the figure that you know the people out, you know, for the parties out it doesn't always work that way you have to find an attorney to do it, good thing Rory's an attorney, and you know, Joseph, you're not even like looking to do anything with land sometimes. I mean, like sometimes you don't want to hold it right. You just want to turn around and sell it to somebody else.

Unknown: 12:14

So in the beginning, I was flipping everything. But now we understand wealth. And I'm holding on to everything that I can. We have other strategic things that we'll do, you know, we'll rehab and then just cash out, cash out refinance, keep the property put it on Airbnb or something. So we're holding on to everything that we can these days.

Jason Muth: 12:36

Are you getting most of your properties? The first one that you mentioned was land, right? $3,000 property? Are you still acquiring land through tax deeds? Or are you mostly acquiring property that already has an existing dwelling on the property that just needs a lot of work?

Unknown: 12:50

We prefer the land with structures, we prefer that. But I'll acquire land still any day because there's such a need, especially in Florida. And I was getting so good I almost felt like a wholesaler, right? Almost the same except for I'm just buying the property. So I had a buyer's list, a strong buyers list. People are harassing me for properties, like hey, you have any more land, you have any more land. So I would literally the minute I purchased, I already knew what I was going to sell it for. And I was just, you know, just we're just flipping these things like hotcakes, whatever we can get our hands on. We're doing it. We don't really pass up any any investment that that makes sense.

Jason Muth: 13:29

Is most of what you're doing right now in Florida?

Joseph Griffin: 13:31

We're predominantly in the South. We're based out of Florida, but right now we're mostly Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and Georgia. Those are our five top states.

Jason Muth: 13:45

Is it because it's easier in those states to go about this tax deed process? I know that you mentioned there's three different types of states out there, like have you gravitated to the ones where it might be a quicker process for you or is it just because geographically you're located in the southeast?

Unknown: 14:00

You hit the nail on the head with your first statement. So I'll give you an example. Georgia and Texas are redemption deed states. The thing that I don't like about their auction is it's in person. And they haven't only the first Tuesday of every month, so that means I have to literally go there and I can only go to one auction a month right? So that's one thing we don't like about that. But then in Florida most of our auctions are online. There are 67 counties in Florida, and I can be in like five auctions a week just sitting on my butt buying property, right? So definitely love the Florida tax deed process. And then even diving deeper Florida's a hybrid state. Florida has lien sales as well. For the liens is they don't turn into deeds. On year three year on year two, you have to force as a lien holder, you have to force a public deed sale, which is these auctions that I get in and win property anyway. So unless you just have so much money that you're trying to, you know, increase and get 12% or whatever percentage you win the bid returns, it doesn't even make sense. But then we have states like Alabama, where liens do turn into deeds. You don't have to force any other auction. So we'll go acquire houses three bedroom, two bath homes and Alabama with acquisition of just $3,000. Now granted, we'd have to put about $15-$20,000 into the rehab. But these are awesome rental to rental properties. We're looking at ROI return on investment on these properties on year two, year three. So in there is equity there. So awesome, awesome investments in Alabama. So I definitely like Alabama, and I don't even live there, right. I never knew.

Jason Muth: 15:46

Roll Tide right? Are you an SEC guy?

Joseph Griffin: 15:51

I'm from New Orleans originally. So I'm like, yeah, go Tigers. Definitely.

Jason Muth: 15:55

Go Geaux, right. I do love the color combo. Right. Yellow is it gold and purple. Yeah, tigers. Yeah. Good. Question with that, though, you know, you mentioned I followed some of your social media as well, we were talking a lot about short term rentals. And we talk about that a lot on this podcast because that's what we do on the side. Are you starting to keep more of your properties as short term rentals because of the revenue opportunity? Is it a good mix between long term and short term? Like, what? What are you doing these days versus what you used to be doing?

Unknown: 17:05

We try to short term if we can, but it's not my opinion, is the market's opinion. So if, for instance, anything in Orlando, short term, like almost anything in Orlando, short term, but if we have a multi unit, then we may long term, so we're closing, we should be closing on an apartment complex this week. And they told us it's 18 units, five of those, it's two buildings, one building has like five units, we're gonna short term those, see how that goes. If that goes great, like we think it will, then slowly, we just won't allow the long term tenants to renew their leases. And we might convert the entire building to short term rentals. You know, if all goes well, really just the market, every market is not good for short term rentals, every market doesn't even allow the short term rentals, you know, look at what Atlanta is doing. You got so many cities that are are kind of looking down on it. So we kind of just play by ear, we do a lot of research. And so our research will determine pretty much what we're going to do for a certain area,

Jason Muth: 18:07

You know, if there's a lot of people that are bidding on these properties, and if there's a lot of states where it's favorable, you know, such as the ones in which you're operating, I know that you know, you you actually have I don't know if you have a mastermind or courses that you're selling, and we could talk more about that later on. But, you know, why give away the secrets? Like, you know, you're creating competition for yourself, aren't you?

Unknown: 18:25

Yeah, people say that all the time. So the thing is, I wasn't telling anybody for some time, and then people kept people were asking me, Hey, what are you doing? And hey, what are you doing? And I was like, you know, what somebody was like, you should just teach and make a course. And I was like, okay, okay, like when people really even want to know this stuff. I was like, people don't want to know this crap. It's boring advice. And, you know, I made the course. And sure enough, everyone wanted, like, people were so intrigued by what is this? And then I realized no one's really teaching this stuff, teaching these things. And when I, when we saw the opportunity of how we can scale this further than anyone else has, has really done. That's when we're like, okay, we can do this. Now. There's so much opportunity out there, though, Jason, I'm creating competition. And there's still so much for everyone to win. I realized that the richest people in this world, the wealthiest people in this world, they actually get money together. Right? It's like they're competing. But there's so many partnerships, there's so many collaborations, and there's so many things in place to where you come here, and then you go here, right, they get money together. And that's ultimately what we did. We established this network and our academy, we have our own lenders, and you know, we have a list of properties, we have partnerships. To give you an example in Texas, everything is relationship building these days that that's I think that's the real key to my success. I just started sitting in a restaurant, an individual in Texas, that gets the list of properties before the list is even put out. So we are able to go do our own lien, we're pretty much doing our own liens, what some of these property owners. We're paying their back taxes for them, we're getting them under contract, they're signing the deed over to us. So if they don't pay us, we already own the property. It's just some some crazy things that we're able to do with these partnerships just from building relationships.

Jason Muth: 20:22

Yeah, I think that's key to any of this. I mean, there's a lot of different ways that real estate investors can be investing and you've even said it there. You know, everyone can win, because there's enough of this to go around. I think we've seen that in a lot of different types of investing and it comes up a lot on this podcast. is where, you know, there's not a finite amount of money that can be made, even in like a niche like this. I mean, it was interesting to hear you explain that. Because, you know, suddenly, if you have all these students in Florida that are all bidding on the same auctions, as you are on your computer, you know, I'm thinking, Alright, you're all driving the price up on on each other. Talk about the types of people that you hear from who learn from you who enter your courses, your student, what's their background, like? The ones who are successful with it, like what separates them from the ones who aren't,

Unknown: 21:08

I was just about to like, like, bring that up after what you just said, because it's funny, I may have, you know, we had 500 students last year, and we think rule of numbers, only, maybe 20%, will even attempt it, right? There's so many people, they'll come in the course. And just like college, how many people go to school and then drop out or even get a license, and then never even actually work in that field or leave first year, right? It's the same thing, I always tell my students how you do anything, is how you do everything. So if you're that person that puts the work, and whatever you do, you're gonna be successful, right. But if you've always been, you know, half asser, or you're gonna get into this industry, and never gonna buy a property, I don't care what method courses you take, you're just never going to be successful until you change your mindset and focus and change you. So with that being said, most of my students, I think they relate - they're travel nurses, we mostly get a lot of nurses, a lot of travel nurses and nurses. I think it's because because they relate to me because I was able to leave nursing at age 29. You know, when people see that are like, I want to do that. I'm making enough money to do that. And you'd be amazed at some of the caliber of students that I do have, we have some travel nurses that have saved up like $200,000, and they still have no idea what to do with it. Right? They don't know how to pay themselves. They don't understand proper business structure, asset protection, nothing. People think that just because they go online and open up the LLC, that they're protected. Right. It's their personal name, their personal address. I mean, it's almost, it's not amazing, but I think I was very surprised to see how much people really don't know. And that's why we wanted to incorporate that into our academy. We're teaching everything, not just how to buy tax deeds, because you need to understand the basics. You need to understand proper business structure, asset protection, how to file your taxes, right, who to call for a certain things, having a team, real estate agent, attorney, I have my students, they need an attorney on their team in their state. But it's something that a lot of people won't, won't tell you. They won't they won't teach you these things. But it's super important.

Jason Muth: 23:20

Yeah, that's where Rory comes in. He's an attorney. He's the broker does the taxes. He's integral part to my team to our team. But you know, being the attorney on this, on this podcast, Rory, like, you know, I know he's not operating in Florida, but you know, listening to what Joseph is doing his teaching tax deed investing to his students, like, what are some things that people should look out for? And like, why should they contact an attorney, if they're going to run down this road?

Rory Gill: 23:47

Well, this is one of those areas where things vary so much state to state, and here it varies very much town to town, even because the town is the level, at least Massachusetts where people are have property taxes, and each town has its own personality, on processes for the tax a tax deeds. But having somebody who really specializes in that space is going to be critical. It's not something that your friend who's a divorce attorney can handle for you. This is a really specialized body of knowledge. And it's very different state to state this for someone who's going to start for it and you have to understand kind of the risks that are involved. You know, some states I'd imagine it's a pretty clean process to get a tax deed, but in other places you could possibly pay for it, purchase a tax deed, and then encounter a lot more expenses just to clear it to quiet title or to actually gain possession of the property. So it might not be a great investment strategy in some places for those who can't whether the risks that are involved

Unknown: 24:42

Definitely that's funny you say that how many how many times do you hear people is like - Oh no, my friends an attorney. Okay. What kind of attorney?

Jason Muth: 24:53

Let's just say my friends a doctor, right? It's like alright, well, you know, is your friend a cardiologist, a pulmonologist like, is she a dermatologist? No, no, she's a family practitioner. Okay, great. She's not going to you know, be open and do open heart surgery on me but she's gonna refer me to somebody that probably can do that. So you know, not all attorneys are cut the same way. Not all doctors are cut the same way. Not all real estate investors are cut the same way. I'm sure there's some stuff that you know, Joseph, you probably have networked with a ton of people that probably do a certain type of real estate investing a great way that you have no experience doing yourself because you've kind of picked this niche and you've gone all in on it and

Unknown: 25:28

I think that's why it's it's super important to have done really well with it. that guidance like I was was just saying we, we kind of get into analysis paralysis a little bit when e hear so many different people saying so many different things you know. You got Dave Ramsey telling you to save save save you got you know people like Grant Cardone telling you to invest, invest, getting getting that getting that. You're like, what do I do? What do I do so and we're all different. There's no school teachers where there's one right like one right answer. But then when we get into real world, we understand it's just more about more appropriate versus less appropriate decision making.

Jason Muth: 26:03

I could just picture like, you know, Dave Ramsey on one shoulder saying one thing Grant Cardone, the one saying leverage, leverage leverage. Don't save money. Talk about some of your awesome deals. Like, you know, you've been doing this for a while now, like, you know, what are some of the homeruns you've hit.

Unknown: 26:18

One of my favorite deals was when I was when I really knew I was just done with a nursing. I got an empty lot for $3,000. And I sold it to a builder for $18,500. I was like, if I just do three of these a year, I'm making more money than I did as a nurse. And that's when it really hit me. One of the best deals that we've done, there was one of my business partners, he got a property up in the panhandle of Florida - Bay County or something like that. $15,000 he acquired the property for and without rehabbing it or anything, he sold it as-is for $130,000. By far the best flip that I've ever seen from a tax deed auction without touching without rehabbing. By far one of the better deals that I've seen. And now looking at what the market just because this was a few years ago, if he would have held it to what the market just did over the past two years, it would have been worth more. So this was $130,000 in like 2019. That was crazy.

Jason Muth: 27:21

Talking about 10x'ing your money that was 10x'ing your money right there.

Unknown: 27:24

I love this strategy, because you don't need good credit. If you do have good credit. We even teach some ways to leverage, you know, getting business credit, and then how to turn those business, how to turn that business credit into cash. There's just so many techniques out there, a lot of us are stuck because we're stopping ourselves, right? So so many of us like, oh, I can't do this. I can't go I can't go to law school. Because XYZ we give ourselves the boundaries, like we give ourselves the restrictions. But knowing what I know now there's there's a thousand ways to do whatever the heck you want to do in this world.

Rory Gill: 27:59

Are there certain market conditions that work better for the strategy? In my mind, this is a strategy that, you know, relies on there being a good number of distressed property. So I kind of think this is a down economy type of investment, but you've been doing it well the past couple years and then up economy, What's the best market condition to invest in tax deeds?

Unknown: 28:17

So we want active markets typically. So there's some properties there are some places that we'll look at, to give you an example, Alabama, where we go to run comps, and like we don't even have any comps. There's been no sales in this entire area for like three years. Those aren't the best areas to be trying to flip something in, right? But then we have places in Florida, the only thing that we really need is activity, right? Florida, so many people are moving to Florida, I think I'm just spoiled. It just made my life so much easier. But I can almost go buy a property in any of the counties. And I know I'm going to be able to flip it almost - I said almost. But for the most part, we just need activity. We need employment, almost the same for for any other type of real estate investment, to be honest with you. We need to make sure the employment rate's there, you really want to dive into the crime the schools, what other businesses are going to that area. We'll literally target the same way we target multifamily real estate. Is there a Starbucks there? Is there McDonald's, you know, whose is Facebook, bringing their company here, right? So those are the things that we will sit on property will buy and hold sometimes knowing that piece of land is it's under development, but they're about to develop the heck out of it.

Jason Muth: 29:37

And my guess is you'll definitely pay your taxes when you're holding that land just so you don't end up on that same list and have people bidding on taking it away.

Unknown: 29:45

I mean, Rory just mentioned that too. That is a thing. Sometimes you might win the bid for $5,000. But then you never took into account quiet title $3,000 You never took into account liens. You didn't even search for liens. Now. You got a $20,000 lien on this property. Now you're stuck with the property taxes, and you didn't even know there was HOA fees on this. You know what I mean? There's so many other things that the due diligence is the most important aspect to to real estate in general. But especially in the tax deed industry.

Jason Muth: 30:18

Yeah, cause you can get yourself in a lot of trouble if you're if you're buying these things blindly. And then next thing you know, you know, for you to take possession, there's a whole lot more that you have to invest in it. So I'm guessing that some people who don't know what they're doing are winning these auctions and they're just saying I didn't realize that I had all these liens and they can't afford them, right? So they just ended up back on the list.

Unknown: 30:38

Back on the list, they're messaging me on Instagram. That's what they're doing. They're contacting me true story.

Jason Muth: 30:46

In your DM saying, save me? Why don't we get into our final couple questions, we ask all our guests and then we'd love to have you, you know, talk a little bit more about the program that you offer your students and how people get a hold of you to learn more. Because, you know, this is such a fascinating component of real estate investing that I think a lot of people that are listening to this podcast might not have considered, especially if you're in a state that, you know, maybe here in the northeast, like you might not consider it because it might not be as common up here. I actually don't know. But you might be just because you're in Massachusetts doesn't mean you can't invest in Florida. A lot of people do it. Yeah, let's get to our final couple questions that we ask all of our guests who were on the podcast, just as a way to kind of get to know you a little bit more and see what you have to say. First question is, if you can get on stage for half hour and talk about any subject of the world zero preparation, what would it be?

Unknown: 31:37

The obvious answer would would definitely be tax deeds. This is something that I can talk about in multiple states. I put a lot of time and effort into this and understanding it. The other thing that I would say that I could probably talk about is resiliency. That would be more like a motivational speech. Yeah.

Jason Muth: 31:57

You know, your background as a veteran and as a nurse, I can imagine there's a lot of stories that would contribute to that resiliency talk. So we'll have to listen to the both.

Unknown: 32:07

Totally 100%. I think that leads into your second question.

Jason Muth: 32:11

Second question, tell us something that happened early in your life or career that impacts the way that you're working today.

Unknown: 32:18

Oh, all right. So you know what's funny, I don't think I introduced myself officially, right. But I'm originally from New Orleans, Louisiana. And after Hurricane Katrina, I was kind of like living all over the place. And you know, sleeping in this person's home, on their couch, and then here and then here, I joined the army when I was 17. And from then, what happened in my life to really make me what I am today is a whole bunch of crap, just like everybody else, right? Everyone has has their story. But one thing that the military taught me was how to fail fast and move on. So you know, things happen. You you learn your lesson, and you drive on you, you have to drive on, the minute you stop is the minute you're you're done. The minute you give up on yourself, is the minute you're done, I've been in a lot of crappy situations, right from from being stuck outside in the snow to being bombed to gunshots, right? I've seen it all. But guess what, that's not an excuse. You know, I still ultimately wanted to be The Tax Deed Wolf. So I had to get up every single day and make it happen, right? I've been divorced before it so many people will use anything as an excuse. But we create these boundaries for ourselves. So that's the one thing that I've learned is, is the sky is not the limit your mind is so you can do whatever it is that you want to do. You just have to believe it first before all.

Jason Muth: 33:53

I sense a lot of motivational speaking in your answers. That was one of the best answers that I've heard so far. I love what you said fail fast and move forward without it.

Joseph Griffin: 34:02

Fail fast and move on. I literally have it tattooed. tattooed on my arm over here. One of my first sergeants used to always tell us that just fail fast and move on. You can't change it. It's done. It's over. Let's keep moving.

Jason Muth: 34:17

Thank you for sharing that. I mean, like, I want to end on that note. But let's get to the final question. And then you could tell people where it can find you. Final question that we have tell us that you're watching or reading or listening to these days.

Unknown: 34:27

Something that I am doing more of is podcasts and books, right the one thing that I'm reading right now How to Win Friends and Influence People. I tried to distance myself from the negativity because what you tune into you turn into. Definitely figuring that out. So staying away from negative minded people, whether they're family, whether they're friends, you know how to change a lot of my circle, I'm pretty much hanging around millionaires at this point. That's what if you're a millionaire, and you can show me how to get where I want to be. That's where I'm, that's where I'm hanging out. And that's what I'm listening, listening to how to How to Win Friends and Influence People is one good reason I'm listening to right now.

Jason Muth: 35:12

Yeah, it's good to have that circle. I mean, and you know, it's a good positive influence. I mean, just because you're a millionaire doesn't make you a good person, but you're probably hanging out with good millionaires - that are smart that are you know, teaching you something with your business that are you know, probably intellectually and spiritually positive people. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, we are who we surround ourselves with and you know, it's important to remove the negativity from our lives. And you know, if you're listening to this and you're around a lot of naysayers, you know, you have to go find a couple of people go find your tribe, people who actually, you know, will be encouraging and uplifting and tell you, you're on the right path or they'll tell you when you're wrong, you know, but there'll be honest about it.

Joseph Griffin: 35:49

Go hang around the Rorys in the Jasons, y'all.

Jason Muth: 35:52

No, and the Josephs. Joseph, this has been an amazing conversation again, about a subject that we haven't really talked about too much here on this podcast. I'm sure a lot of people who are listening are saying, I want to learn from Joseph, I need to learn more about tax lien investing. We will put all this stuff in the show notes, but tell us what's the easiest way to get a hold of you? Or what are some things that you'd like some people to know if they want to get a hold of you?

Unknown: 36:14

Definitely. So we've, we've branded really well as The Tax Deed Wolf. So what I want you to do, we all are familiar with Google. I would literally just rather just go to Google

Joseph Griffin: 36:24

Got a great logo. Also, you can see it right and go search Tax Deed Wolf. Our Instagram is Tax Deed Wolf. Tik Tok, Facebook, every platform that you can think of, we're Tax Deed Wolf on every platform. So that's how you're gonna find us just search for Tax Deed Wolf, and my team and I will gladly point you in the right direction. Because what we don't want to do is see people lose money. I wasn't lying when when I say, Jason, that there's so many people in my DMs that come to me after the fact like, Hey, I just purchased this property. And I'm stuck. I don't even know what to do you know this and that. We want to prove it. I was a nurse, I come from a history of preventing disease, we don't want to see you when you're already having a heart attack. We want you to be doing the right things to not have the heart attack, right. So this is how we do everything holistically. That's what we want. We want you to come to us to make sure you're you're doing everything right from proper business structure, asset there. I love it. It's the I see the wolf. And it's a house right protection, to your taxes, right. And I'm not the expert in all of these things. But guess what, at the Academy, we hire the experts to come teach you. So I'm not teaching you business credit. I'm getting one of the top instructors to come teach you business credit. I'm not teaching you law. I would call Rory and say Rory, can I pay you to come teach a class for my students? Alright, so we're getting the experts to come teach you in every category. And I think I'll land my plane there. there in the wolf. It's like, who came up with that for you?

Unknown: 37:57

My business partner when he found me on social media, he saw what I was doing with the tax deeds. And ironically, he worked with Grant Cardone. And he was like, Man, you can 10x that. And I was like, huh what are you talking about? He was like you we should start a fund. And you know, we can invest in in these tax deeds with blue fund and this and that create X amount of returns and you know, ultimately, that's success loves speed. Right? You can't just sit around and keep thinking about the house because then someone else is gonna get it, right? You keep thinking about investing in the stock. And now it's gone up 100 bucks. Right. So we jumped right into it. Okay, let's do it. It's been great.

Jason Muth: 38:34

I saw words beneath it. Is it capital?

Unknown: 38:36

Yeah Wolf Pack Capital - this is our, our fund, right?

Jason Muth: 38:41

Yep. That's great. Well, congratulations for all that and putting the class together and really doing a lot of due diligence in the subject that you know, is it sounds complicated, but you know, when you break it down, you know, on paper, it's a little bit easier to understand and then surrounding it with a lot of the right resources, because you're right. It's not just understanding what this is, but it's, you know, building the team from the ground up, you know, and every real estate strategy is going to have that, you know, you can understand what the strategy is. Everyone gets the BRRRR method if you're listening to real estate investing podcast, but like, how do you build a team around that, you know, taxes, attorney, inspectors, contractors, everything you got to build your team. So you know,

Joseph Griffin: 39:19

Don't forget about the bank.

Jason Muth: 39:22

Number one. We'll come to you for the capital. Now that you have the capital firm. Hey, Rory, where can everyone find you?

Rory Gill: 39:30

People looking for me? They can find me at my real estate brokerage NextHome Titletown. nexthometitletown.com. Or my law practice UrbanVillage Legal - urbanvillagelegal.com.

Jason Muth: 39:39

Yes. Has not earned the title of wolf just yet. We'll leave that for you Joseph. Thanks for the conversation. This has been great. You know, we'll link all this up in the show notes. As I mentioned, Joseph, I really appreciate all your time today and talking about tax deeds and lots of great inspiration as well. I think that, you know, this, this conversation easily could have gone into mindset more than it really did. But you know, I'm glad you were able to sprinkle that into this conversation. Because one thing we've learned a lot with real estate investing and real estate investors is that they all have a really positive mindset. Maybe it's come from adversity, or maybe it's come from a different spot. You need to have that mindset if what you're going to do is anything in this space. And you know, you certainly do that better today. So thank you for that.

Joseph Griffin: 40:20

I appreciate you all.

Jason Muth: 40:21

Thank you for listening, if you are still listening to the podcast, you know, we appreciate the fact that you've made it to the end of the episode. We'd love it if you can give us a rating, hopefully a five star rating or comment on YouTube or shoot me an email Jason@nexthometitletown.com is where you'll find me. We read them all. We respond to them all. If you want to be a guest in the podcast also reach out to me and we'll get you scheduled. Thank you Joseph on behalf of Joseph and Rory, this is Jason and we'll see you next time. Thank you.

Announcer: 40:51

This has been The Real Estate Law Podcast. Because real estate is more than just pretty pictures. And law goes well beyond the paperwork and courtroom arguments. were powered by next home Titletown greater Boston's progressive real estate brokerage. More at nexthometitletown.com and UrbanVillage Legal, Massachusetts real estate counsel serving savvy property owners, lenders and investors. More at urbanvillagelegal.com. Today's conversation was not legal advice, but we hope you found it entertaining and informative. Discover more at realestatelawpodcast.com Thank you for listening