Not to mention, taking on a whole lot of unnecessary risk in the process. If you buy tax lien properties, chances are you've ended up with a property you thought was nice, but ended up being a total money pit at some point. If you haven't... well, good luck. The good news is, you really don't have to buy tax lien properties, or own any properties at all, to make a whole lot of money off the tax sale process.

As you probably know, when a property is lost because of unpaid taxes, it generally is sold at auction to the highest bidder. Even when the taxes are only $5,000, the property frequently gets bid up to $20,000, $30,000, the sky's the limit. In today's economy, even people in really nice properties with a lot of equity are losing their homes for small amounts of taxes.

So overbids of many, many thousands of dollars are happening everywhere when investors buy tax lien properties. In about half the states in the U.S., that overbid goes straight to the government. It's unfair, but it's the way it is. In the other half of states, the money is held for the previous owner. The money will still go to the government, if unclaimed after 1-5 years in most cases, but at least the owner has a chance.

A slim chance.

Most of these owners are never properly notified. They don't live at the address on file with the county, so they don't get any notification from the county. They probably have no idea that they live in a state where the overages are held for them. So the money just sits there until the time expires, and then ends up in the government coffers.

Want to make an easy $100,000 a year? Connect these owners with their funds and take a 40%-50% finder's fee on the money. Your service is worth it - without you, 99% of these owners won't find out about the money until it's too late, if ever - and that size finder fee is currently legal on these and a few select other types of funds (mortgage overages, also), since they are not held at the state level, and thus, aren't subject to state unclaimed money finder laws.