in 2012 I had a chance to buy a duplex in a relatively desirable neighborhood for $25k. It needed about $25k in rehab, but $50k in that area was unheard of.

My (now ex) wife was against buying it because we had not bought a home for ourselves yet, and even trying to explain that we could buy it, live in one side, rent the other for the full cost of the mortgage and then some was not enough to convince her, so I let it slide as no amount of money was worth the never-ending argument that it would have caused.

That duplex is worth about $450k now, and if I had gone through with it it would have generated a conservative $200k in rent income in the meantime.

If I had known the relationship would have been over in less than 5 years from that point, I probably would have bought it anyway, but at the time my mentality was "happy wife, happy life", naively thinking that there was a way to make someone happy who refused to be happy.

not always true or even the norm, I checked 3 near me and they are decent neighborhoods

The best deals are always in shithole places /s

There was an episode of Fixer Upper where Chip and Joanna helped their carpenter buy a house for 15K. The neighborhood was dystopian. Presumably people were using the house for shooting practice as its one side was entirely bullet riddled.

> the property can only be sold if everything is OK with it (no litigation, liens, etc), and taxes are owed by persons? Is it different over there?

This could vary by jurisdiction, but as I understand it, taxes and liens are attached to the property itself. "Clean title" can be a contingency of offer: buyer can back out and get back their earnest money (aka deposit) if the property has liens/encumbrances that are not written down in the sales contract (example clause at the link at the end). When you buy the place, you get title insurance, often mandated by your mortgage lender. The title insurance company does a title search on the property to find liens and owed money on the property and then sells you an insurance policy saying that they'll make it right if they missed anything during their search. This is because your mortgage lender never wants to be second in line to get their hands on the property to recoup in case you default on your mortgage. Liens on the property should be easy to find because they're supposed to be registered with the local municipality: maybe the city you're in, maybe the county, maybe the state, idk I think it depends. In practice, maybe some roofer/plumber/landscaper forgot to do that and now you have a problem you didn't know you had. That's what the insurance is for. The property _status_ is not knowable so much as the _status transitions_ are knowable: when was a lien attached or removed from the property, so that's why it involves a private company looking it up. You'd think it'd be a public good, but it's not. Odd.

As an example: when I bought my current place, the previous owner was financing the furnace which included free annual service from the installer. He wanted us to take over the payments. We asked him to convey without encumbrances, meaning pay off the balance with the furnace company before we'd close on the house. If he had refused, we could have backed out of the sale because our offer said that we were only willing to buy without owing anyone anything.

https://www.lawinsider.com/clause/title-contingency

Very commonly in the U.S. are liabilities that "run with the land", not the owner. This is done intentionally.

Easements can be a huge headache too e.g. some utility may have an easement to come on your property at any time and do a whole list of activities to maintain a pipeline, or power line, or what have you.

It varies by state and sometimes even county. Sometimes you buy the property outright (a deed), sometimes you buy the debt (a lien), so the original owner pays you back with interest but they keep the property unless you foreclose, and sometimes you buy the right to the land if the original owner doesn't pay you back within a set time frame. (a redemption deed)

Here's a general map of how it works, by state: https://www.secretsoftaxlieninvesting.com/tax-sale-map

In general, when it's sold as a deed, and sometimes as a redemption deed, non-government liens on the property are forfeit, and it clears out the taxes owed by the government entity selling it, but it doesn't clear out other government liens, e.g. when a property is sold to pay county property tax, the federal government could have a lien on it for income tax owed by the same owner, and the county could have a lien on it for sidewalk repair, and a mortgage company could have a lien for a loan. The mortgage company would be unable to collect anything, the federal tax lien would likely allow the government to force you to sell it to them for what you paid for it, but they wouldn't be entitled to collect from you, because it's the previous owner who pays taxes, but you could still be required to pay the county lien for sidewalk, plus penalties accrued since the previous owners non payment started, because you now own that property and its sidewalk.

It’s called a tax sale. The delinquent tax was assessed on the value of the ”improved property”.

not quiet true - if you wanna use the land - you'd have to pay to destroy the house already built on top of it.

Did you look at the $3000 house? https://govauctions.app/auction/hud-home-420-e-dayton-st-fli...

It needs to be torn down and rebuilt. It's not a large plot. It doesn't seem to be in an attractive location. For all we know the water is undrinkable. I suspect its true value is negative.

Sure, maybe - but just because 123,000 is cheap doesn't mean it's OK to make your headline "You can buy a house from the government for $3,000" if the reality is that it's 40x as expensive and you don't actually get a house, you get a demolition project you have to complete in order to use the land.

Yes and for that I can get something much nicer in a non derelict area. Probably a much better plot too if I go rural.

Not if the thing is actually worth $3000

Local governments that very much want to get their tax monies, even if receiving them is delayed by a few years before someone buys the property.