Buying Vacation Home "Bargains"

Have you always been curious about the bargains you supposedly get when you buy foreclosures, tax-deed or tax-lien properties? Do you sometimes wonder if that's how you can get a toehold in an pricey vacation home region?

I wonder, too. I have never bought anything this way. But Larry Loftis has. In today's RealEstateJournal, published by the Wall Street Journal Online, he offers these tips:

* The best deals on acquiring properties are not on tax deeds, but on tax liens where the redemption period has expired.

* At tax-deed sales, the best deals will usually occur on vacant lots, since fewer bidders will be interested in acquiring them.

* Be wary of tax-assessed values on vacant lots, because those figures may not be indicative of the lot's true fair-market value.

* If you seek to acquire a property at a tax-deed auction, you may want to invest in counties that have low minimum bids.

It sounds like Loftis knows his stuff. The Journal identifies him as a "Florida-based attorney and author of Profit By Investing in Real Estate Tax Liens (Dearborn, 2005)."

I'd love to get feedback from any of you who have used any of these strategies.