Making Money from Worm Farms and Billboards, with Kathy Kennebrook

Episode 7: Making Money from Worm Farms and Billboards

Kathy Kennebrook is a real estate marketing expert, as well as a real estate investor with more than 20 years of experience in a broad spectrum of types of real estate deals. Kathy helps investors with ready-made direct mail marketing campaigns to bring in leads, and in her own investments, she specializes in buying empty tracts of land through tax lien auctions and other methods and then making money from them through innovative and creative lease arrangements.

What You Will Learn:

In the first section of the episode, Ted explains why Texas is a great state in which to buy tax lien certificates. Texas has monthly auctions, on the first Tuesday of each month in all 250 counties. The county auctions the deed to the property to the highest bidder at the auction, and the deed generates a 25% penalty return (note: this is not the same thing as an interest rate). The deed is redeemable by the property owner for 180 days after the auction, meaning the tax-defaulted owner can claim their property back by paying the taxes owed, plus a penalty of 25% to the holder of the deed. In Texas, the mortgage on the property is called the “deed of trust”, and it remains on the property even if you have purchased the deed at auction. If the property owner fails to redeem their deed by paying the taxes and penalty, your purchase of the property will still not generate a title because of the deed of trust encumbrance. However, the vast majority of defaulted property owners will redeem their deed.

In the second segment of this episode, Ted talks with coach Bill Beddoes about how auctions work in the state of Michigan. Regardless where you are in the United States, you can find information on Michigan’s county-level tax auctions, properties up for auction, and any special Michigan county rules at www.tax-sale.info. Bill shares details of what sort of information you can find on properties available for auction in California at www.bid4assets.com. Bill discusses the kind of turn around and profits you can expect, and how many properties you can generally expect per auction. He explains that half of all auction attendees will never bid on a property, and he discusses what happens to the properties that don’t sell at auction. He explains why Michigan offers major advantages over other states, and he highlights the value of finding a coach who is local to the area you are investing in.

In the final portion of the episode, Ted brings in his special guest Kathy Kennebrook. Kathy has been operating in real estate for more than twenty years, and she is both an investor and trainer. Kathy has diverse real estate investment experience, with fix-and-flip, buy-and-hold, tax liens and tax deeds, and more. In this segment of the episode, you will learn:

• What skills, traits, and experience you should develop if you are looking to go into business in real estate or any other sector
• How Kathy got involved in real estate with no previous experience, and why she decided to leave her career in finance to start investing
• What the transition from finance to real estate investing was like, and why the first deal was both a valuable lesson and a nightmare
• Why Kathy especially enjoys buying vacant land properties at auctions due to having less competition
• What innovative strategies Kathy has used to profit from vacant land properties she has bought at auction, including leasing to billboard companies and worm farms
• How Kathy uses direct mail campaigns to reach out to delinquent out-of-state landowners to find potential sellers
• Why Kathy caps her tax lien purchases at $1800-2000, why she and her husband are both risk-averse
• How Kathy helps investors implement direct-mail marketing campaigns into their businesses, and how to get more information about her services

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