Tax Sale Sundries
My last post was prophetic in that my sideways day, did turn into days (or daze as I wrote). The days since have found my mind stuck in neutral with the engine spinning ineffectively much of the time.
It feels like depression (well, one of its manifestations -the sort that feels like a circus at night devoid of humans so everything looks weird and out of perspective). Other than the fact that this is simply how I roll sometimes, I am at a loss as to why. Six or so months ago I got on a new medication regime and pleasantly found that I felt better and had more energy than I can ever remember. This is the first time I've had any break in that for any significant period of time (i.e. for longer than a day). I am concerned about it but well, not much to do for now but try to keep bicycling and wait.
However, it was in the midst of this excessive slump, on Saturday, that I told Chris I needed help. Not that kind of help (he's not qualified to provide that), but help researching this tax sale auction stuff. He made unhappy mumphing sounds but agreed to lend some hands and a computer.
It was thus that Sunday, I was engaged in cooking for later this week and Chris was tick tacking away at his keyboard finding information. A while later, he called me over to show me the truly masterful research he'd accomplished. Between three or four different websites cross referencing APNs, topographical info, and maps, he was able to locate most of the properties on which I couldn't make headway. I was duly impressed.
Then I told him I'd get him the spreadsheet I'd started so he could add info about properties in which we might be interested. He made a suppressed but slightly surprised noise.
via GIPHYThe next night, after I'd largely failed to get much done during the day due to my mind feeling like only 28% of the neurons were connecting correctly, we sat down together to go over the research. Chris had had the unfortunate happening of opening the spreadsheet in Google and then having it fail utterly to save his work. So he brought up the 16 or so websites we needed to find the property information and I brought up the spreadsheet and another copy of the tax auction for additional referencing and we got to work.
We went over the auction map clicking on properties that looked promising, recording info, and generally debating if something was too high an opening bid or too far away. For instance, there was one 3 bdrm 2 bath home in Fallbrook that looked amazing, but the opening bid was $101K and later we'd find that it has a $250K mortgage on it still.
When we'd gone over the map, we went through the listings themselves city by city to make sure we hadn't missed anything too good to miss.
All in all, I wish we'd been doing things this way the last several months. I have always really enjoyed the way Chris and I work on projects together. This appears to hold whether it's a dance number we're choreographing or land for which we're trying to find information. Though I will say the first is much more fun and also healthier.
The next night, we did the same thing, finishing the list of cities. Sadly, the main property we'd become interested in, the one in Oceanside for which the opening bid was $18K, had been removed from the list. The nice part of that is we don't so much have to worry over taking someone's home simply because of a failure to be able to pay taxes. Then we unhappily waded into the world of liens and mortgages and general property reports.
We actually wanted Adam's help with this. I emailed him Monday saying I wanted to check in again (he hadn't responded to my last email) about how we felt we needed a lawyer to see if there were liens, other financial obligations, stuff we didn't know to think about... on properties. His response was:
"Hi Kate,
than it would have been had I understood his meaning when he first said it over the phone. I suppose this is the good thing about professional relationships; I don't have to take this personally. Although I'm kinda' taking it personally.
So, in case you're ever trying to use a tax auction site, here are the kinds of websites we were checking:
- The tax auction site had a map with dots for each property which would give us the APN. (The APN is also available on the regular list of tax auction properties.)
- Then there was a San Diego GIS interactive map that Chris figured out how to use! It allowed us to look up the APN (by selecting a not-so-secret drop down menu I'd failed to see which is why it hadn't been working for me), and locate the parcel and see the actual shape of the plot. It also had a general parcel report that sometimes gave us zoning info and lot size.
- Then we used Google Maps to find the parcel with the "Oh, that bit of road looks like a penis. Where is it on this other map?" method. If you're zoomed in enough on Google Maps, you can see plot lines. Finding the same plot allowed us to get GPS coordinates for that land (thus we can go see it someday).
Now, lien and mortgage (aka "deed") information was a different story altogether. Chris started in the morning as he took the day from work so he could get to his Covid vaccine appointment that was annoyingly not close to work even though it was made possible because of where he works. He started on a website called USRealtyRecords. It wanted $0.95 for a report. We agreed that we could fork over 95 cents for a report that we weren't really sure would have the info we needed. I gave Chris my card and he got the report. It was not everything we hoped for so Chris found another website. This one was called NeighborWho and a monthly subscription cost $26. Oh, very well, we paid for it again.
An hour later I saw a text from my Fraud Alert center asking if I'd really given UsRealtyRecords $19.95. Well... this was odd. Is it fraud if it's the wrong amount? I answered Y for "Yeah, this is an issue" and got a message that they blocked my card. Oh great! Now my main option to access money was turned off. I called the fraud center number listed in the text and talked to a really useful person to whom I explained the situation and she unblocked my card and gave me a number to USRealtyRecords, so I could call them and bawl them out. And also tell them not to charge me a monthly subscription I'd not signed up for.
I did call them and got a very unfortunate call center employee who clearly had to try his hardest to sell me on their product while I insisted that No, I didn't want to have a monthly subscription at all, thank you anyway, and please cancel all record of my card.
Thus I got little work done Tuesday morning of the paying sort but did recupe 20 bucks.
I was at that time, really overwhelmed and found I couldn't stand the sound of my phone blinging, nor reading the text conversation between me and my sisters that the blings indicated were coming through. That and Gchat messages from my various bosses, texts from the awful third boss (canceling my involvement in the job this week), words from Chris about what information he was and wasn't finding, and FB Messenger messages brought me and my anxiety right up to the edge. I excused myself from the text conversations and messenger convos, hopefully politely, and turned off my phone.
This was why I missed the two calls from my bank about the fraud. I thought it was all set but no. It was not. By the time I got my voicemails, the two messages from my bank in Virginia were a few hours old and it was already past 1700 on the east coast. I left a message saying that I felt the matter was handled.
That evening we dove into the deed issue more. (I'd say deed deed, but that seems more confusing than amusing.) In some cases real estate websites actually had some info on mortgages, which was how we found the $250K mortgage on the nice 3 bdrm 2 bath home in Fallbrook. The information is probably old but still pertinent.
Then there was the problem of using our month subscription with NeighborWho to find the information for parcels that have no zoning address. That'd be the street address we all know and love. This is how land gets assigned something dumb like 0 Such and Such Lane. It has no zoning address yet. And NeighborWho does look ups by street address. APNs wouldn't work. We wrote to customer service and moved onward.
We looked into the website for the county assessor, recorder, and county clerk's office. Supposedly they have that info but if they do it isn't on the website, and it's a pandemic so I doubt they're welcoming us, masks and all, to root through their file cabinets. We wrote them an email asking.
Then Chris found two websites saying they could locate such documents for us given the correct information. One was CourtHouseDirect.com, which seemed like it drew info from the second, which was https://arcc-acclaim.sdcounty.ca.gov/ and then click on Search by APN. The good news is that we could see if there were documents available for a property. The bad news is that they wanted us to spend a few bucks to download each document. We decided to wait to see if anyone got back to us on the NeighborWho site which we had already paid $26 to join for a month.
All in all, we narrowed down the prospects to four properties ranging in opening bid price from $4,300 to $38,000+ (I can't recall the exact amount but it was $38K and then some). It's so odd how your perspective changes where now, $38K seems like a lot but in the world of real estate, $38K might have been too good to pass up!
The four prospects are:
0 Welk Highland Ln in Escondido, opening bid $12.8K
0 Boulder Creek Ln in Descanso, opening bid $11.4K
0 Anthony Rd in Valley Center, opening bid $38+K
By Wednesday I was starting to be able to get a little work done. And then I got an email from my bank in which they said they'd canceled my card and had ordered me a new one. Needing groceries notwithstanding, we need to get our deposits into the Tax Auction Sale by March 4th. And while I'm pretty sure that's done by ACH, just in case I need it, this is not a good time to have my card non-functional. It is almost my only access to money, excepting a credit card on which I have a whole $1K credit line. I wrote to my bank explaining as how really all was well. The fraud place canceled the $20 charge, I called the company and they assured me I wouldn't be charged in future months, and I wrote down the agent's name just in case they lied. They called and agreed to reinstate my card. Phew!
Except then they called and said they couldn't and it would take a week to get me a new card unless I paid them $50 to overnight it. I really wish that they felt this was their fault for canceling my card without my permission, but they didn't seem to. I didn't feel that I had a choice and coughed up the $50.
But, late on Wednesday on the east coast means that the card was not in CA on Thursday. I had to pay my doctor's visit copay with my credit card. Luckily, my copayments are not yet $1,000. Give it time...
I realize many people use credit cards for all the things, but I don't because I don't trust myself to pay them on time. I mean, I have ever since I totally couldn't manage to pay the one I got in college on time, but I'm just saying, I have a history and I have a really good credit score that I don't want to mess up.
Chris had to take $ from the stash under the mattress that his mother sent us for Christmas to pay for parking at his vaccine visit. It's good we had these emergency contingencies.
Wednesday night we discussed what research needed to be done. Chris had to work long days the rest of the week so we couldn't go see any land until the weekend. We did need help understanding the many different messages we were getting about what paying a winning bid on a tax auction site actually means (or entitles us to, if you're feeling punny). So, I went on our legal insurance site and emailed all the tax lawyers that had a rating over 7.
Thursday I got an email back from the County Assessor's et. al. saying that they definitely can't help. Also, I got several emails from lawyers ranging from "I can't help," to "send me your insurance member ID." One lawyer, Frantz Farreau, simply said if we provided our phone number he'd call us. Normally I hate this kind of offer, but ... we needed the info.
Friday, I talked with Frantz who's very personable and explained many things, some of which we knew and some we didn't.
Apparently, what you buy at a tax sale auction differs by county. In the county of San Diego you do literally buy the title to the property, meaning you own the property. This is exceptionally good news because neither Chris nor I were looking forward to waiting 6 months to a year to find out if we were going to actually own the thing for which we paid.
Around this time, my doorbell rang and the dog went nuts thwarting our call. Frantz continued to advise me about how much we'd actually end up paying for a winning bid (this was a good reminder because you pay a deed fee/tax thing at $0.55 per $500 of the winning bid), and he expounded upon stuff we knew but maybe weren't taking as seriously as we should about zoning, topography, easements, etc.
At this time, I desperately and suddenly needed to use the facilities. I'm sure you've never had to desperately take a shit while on the phone with someone professional, but it was my bad luck to need to today. I'm not going to expound on what happened but let's leave it that we had a very nice rest of our conversation.
Frantz too echoed what we've heard about hiring a title company to find deed restrictions, as he called them. He also said that liens don't really follow a property but rather an owner, so when you look up liens associated with land, you may not be getting a whole picture. And he recommended, probably rightly, to hire some kind of contractor or engineer to look at the land with us and tell us definitively if what we want to build might actually be possible on said parcel.
Our conversation concluded, I picked up the package outside the door that had made the dog go nuts. It was my new debit card. Then I called our legal insurance to start a claim so Frantz could get paid. Apparently you can't do this online, though you can do all the other things for that insurance online. *Ugh* Moar phone calls!
Then I called to activate my new card. The line was terribly choppy. "For En... pre... ... ," "Plea... en... last four di..." I did my best but when it came time to pick a PIN, the system got confused entirely and hung up on me. I feared all was lost and I had no access to money, but I called back some time later and was able to set the PIN.
I do rather hate being on the telephone. I suppose then it's not such a surprise that I found this entire week trying and couldn't get much paying work done. Friday night I scraped together the energy I had left and made Chris's birthday cheesecake. He asked for sachertort flavors this year which means chocolate and apricot according to Google. After making sure a week ago when I went shopping that we had plenty of ingredients for not one, but two cheesecakes (I plan to experiment with making one gluten free and sugar free), I still found we were short one egg. Chris did his birthday duty and ran to the store for eggs.
We agreed to visit the four properties this weekend. I got up Saturday after Chris came back to bed to take a nap and I received a really useful phone call about my car's warranty (I don't own our car; Chris does). I went through our list, checking the sites once more and seeing if I could figure out a good path to see them. I couldn't. There are two close together up north, in Escondido and Valley Center, and then Descanso and Jamul are plenty far from both us and each other. I also identified how long it would take to get from each property to Chris's work. For the properties up north, between 45 minutes and an hour. The others? More than an hour. And the property in Jamul is definitely land locked. Well, shit squids.
Chris woke up a bit past noon grumpy that he'd slept a large way through the day we were planning on visiting the many properties. Thus we decided to see the two up north and see where we were at with time and energy after that.
So I put on my leggings, this time picking underpants that went along with my white ass having noticed last time (at night after having worn them all day, of course) that you could easily see the pattern on my unmentionables through them. We got much water, snacks, implements of destruction, and set off.
We headed first to Welk Highland Ln where we came across an unfortunate gate. Oh hell! Why is this so common? We turned around but the GPS insisted that this was the only way. I turned once more to get a pic to put here and then read what was showing on the touch pad. It said something like "use the AZ keys to call someone by name or the guard house." And I was all "maybe the guards will let us in...?" As you know, I hate phones, but of course I was elected, as the driver, to call the guards. It's also easier because a vast number of people have trouble understanding Chris due to his accent, despite him being entirely fluent in English.
The guard house asked what property we were going to see, to which I just had to say it was part of the tax sale auction and didn't seem to have a zoning address and... he let us in! I can't believe that worked!
The neighborhood on the other side was sadly what you'd expect for a gated community. Well off looking. Manicured. Concerned about people who aren't them. I pointed out that it's not necessarily a bad thing to have rich neighbors, though we both agreed that it's more difficult to find rich people who really share our values.
Pleasantly, the road up the hill was quite good and certainly wide enough for a flatbed truck. Until we went past that section and the road narrowed to one that certainly couldn't hold cars going opposite directions at once and was hugging the side of the mountain so tightly I thought the molten core of the Earth might get squeezed up through it like a pimple. That could be an issue when it comes to building, but the property was only a short way down this degraded road.
To our surprise, the first thing that's present when you drive onto this property is a pad! It's a fairly long pad that faces west. And the view is just lovely.
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| You can see the highway over the edge of the pad |
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| It's a bit difficult to see the view here |
The dog blessed the land in his usual ways and we considered the likelihood that we could dig away more of the hill behind the pad because... we need to build facing south.
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| It's steeper than it looks here |
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| The land beyond the pad is just beautiful |
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| Phoenix decided to dig a nest while we were there |
We both like this property and acknowledge that it would need a bit of work. We would need to dig away more of the hill so we could build south-facing. We might need to improve the road there off the main road if we're allowed. We would want to build stairs down the hill, which really is pretty straight up and down. It's unclear how we could build down the hill if we wanted our deck or our guest house down there as we couldn't at this point drive onto that part of the property. The biggest issue with this property is the road noise. The highway is far away and yet, the noise is plenty prominent including some odd whumping noises the source of which was unclear.
We spent a good long time in the car at that point trying to make sure we actually were on the property that's for auction. It was really quite confusing as one map showed a parcel that looked like an origami llama and the other map, that was annoyingly tilted at a slightly different angle, showed the same llama but bisected into a fore and aft section. We finally identified that we were looking at the correct property, but that was quite confusing.
Onward we went to Anthony Rd, a road that shows they ran out of good names along the way as we proceeded progressively on Lilac Rd, Lilac Knolls Rd, and then Montañya Rd before reaching it. They started out strong but failed in the last lap.
All in all, the land in question was beautiful. The GPS took us to the closest access, which turned out to be on a platform that was someone elses land, and the parcel in question was down the cliff. But we could see that there wasn't any other access where a road touched it. So, we'd have to get an easement. It was nice and flat -just needing clearing. We stood looking out over it and I said to Chris, "This land is lovely. I don't know why I don't like it." He said "Yeah, me too. Although the fact that the starting bid is $38+K might have something to do with it." So, we left.
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| Pretty and yet... |
We decided we were too tired at that point to do more looking. The other two properties? Maybe tomorrow. Instead we went home and cracked open Chris's birthday cheese cake. He says it's delicious, but tastes nothing like sachertort. *shrug*
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| Chris pretends to excitedly stab the cake |
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| I'm not sure what is happening but my cheesecake hasn't been cooking as quickly as they should and thus the layers don't have straight lines between them |
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