Best Tax Lien Investing Courses

The Attorney’s Secrets to Investing in Tax Lien Certificates offers a comprehensive curriculum on the ins and outs of tax lien investing using context-based learning methods to drive the content home. Offered at an affordable price of $249.95 with a 30-day money-back guarantee, Attorney’s Secrets makes our list as the best overall tax lien investing course. 

The course comes with an audio CD guidebook containing six hours of detailed instruction. The audio CD guidebook follows along with a 240-page course book that provides step-by-step information, including all aspects of finding, researching, selecting, and purchasing tax lien certificates. 

The course creator is Darius Barazandeh, a licensed attorney and real estate investor. His is the only course we found that emphasizes the legal and financial pitfalls of tax lien investing. Attorney’s Secrets devotes half the course discussing the full spectrum of risk issues, including economic, legal, and asset protection risks, along with step-by-step details on how to avoid them. 

The course also provides you with a seven-page, step-by-step action plan to take you from learning to doing, using a proven process. You’ll have access to an online research center to conduct tax lien research by county. 

Attorney's Secrets also includes legal and investment analysis for 26 tax lien certificate states and Washington D.C with detailed analysis of each state’s investment climate, filing deadlines, foreclosure rules, tax sales registration rules, and unfavorable laws. 

Attorney’s Secrets is as comprehensive a course on tax lien investing as you will find. The course comes with six months of phone or email access to the instructor for follow-up coaching.

Often, the best way to learn about a complex topic is from others who are actively participating in the arena. BiggerPockets.com offers content, tools, and a large community of members with valuable tips on getting started in tax lien investing while avoiding costly mistakes.

The mission of BiggerPockets is to help ordinary people build wealth through real estate. Specifically, it wants to help one million of its members build $1 million in wealth—and the company is well on its way with a membership base of over two million. BiggerPockets has a vast library of resources to assist investors in all aspects of real estate investing. But its most valuable resource is the community of experienced investors, who are willing and able to help others through their experience and insight. 

To engage with the tax lien investing community, you can simply type "tax liens" in the search box, and you'll see dozens of forum threads covering a range of tax lien investing topics. You’ll find active conversations on everything from the best way to learn about tax lien certificates to how to win more profitable bids. Best of all, the conversations can get very granular, talking about state- or even county-specific rules and processes. 

BiggerPockets offers a free Starter membership plan, which will give you full access to post and comment on forums. However, if you'd like to dive deeper with access to exclusive webinars, strategy workshops, videos, and online courses, you'll have to sign up for a Pro membership plan. The cost to become a Pro member is $39 a month, but if you commit to an annual membership, you'll only be charged $32.50 each month.

By becoming a Pro member, you can also connect with investor-friendly agents and gain access to real estate tools such as rent estimator reports and investment calculators to analyze properties. Even if you plan to stick to the free Starter membership and learn about tax lien investing through some other course, the free BiggerPockets community is invaluable for getting more specific information.

While it’s not necessary to be certified to invest in tax liens, it can give you more options for ways to develop in the business. Plus, the educational resources and training provided by the National Tax Lien Association (NTLA) are top-notch, with excellent networking opportunities.

Founded in 1997, the NTLA is a non-profit trade organization for the tax sale industry, representing investors, lenders, service providers, and local and state governments regarding tax lien sales. In addition to its educational and training resources available to anyone, it provides advanced education courses for those who want to become a Certified Tax Lien Professional (CTLP). 

The MASTER CLASS is an on-demand program with eight hours of education and immediate access to all the course materials. This course can also serve as a prerequisite for the more extensive CTLP program certification. The MASTER CLASS uses self-assessments and provides a certificate of completion when all the modules are completed and you pass the final exam. You will have three attempts to clear with a passing grade of 70% or greater. The MASTER CLASS covers a wide range of topics from the basics like the differences between a tax lien and a tax deed to investor-focused analysis and the practical side of investing in properties through tax sales.

Beyond the master class, the NTLA also offers the full CTLP program which consists of a rigorous curriculum to prepare candidates to sit for a credentialing exam. Besides completing the coursework at NTLA University, the program requires three years of validated experience in the tax sale industry, participation in additional NTLA webinars and workshops, and attendance at NTLA conferences and symposiums. NTLA also offers access to a membership, which will grant you benefits such as members-only webinars, an online community forum, and discounted pricing at NTLA University. Annual membership dues depend on your industry status.

The cost of NTLA University's MASTER CLASS in Tax Sale Investing and Servicing is $1,499. The courses are taught by NTLA Executive Director Brad Westover, who is a nationally-recognized speaker and expert on both tax lien and tax deed investing.

All tax lien investing is state- or even county-specific, and Florida is target-rich for tax lien sales. Because Florida employs online tax lien certificate auctions, it’s easy for anyone in the U.S. to participate. The Udemy instructor is a lifelong resident of Florida who has taught more than 16,000 students, earning a 4.2 rating as of April 2023.

The course includes 2.5 hours of on-demand video consisting of 12 sections and 35 lectures. Students have lifetime access to all course materials, including three downloadable resources. The course explores all the ins and outs of tax lien investing in Florida through a case study and visits to actual auction websites. It costs $24.99, but discounts are often available.

The course may not be as extensive as other tax lien investing courses on this list, but for the price, it’s a small investment of time and money to get solid introductory instruction on the topic.