Most of what's in a California tax auction will lose you money.

Reasonable suspicion — the niche is full of them. Here's how we're different: the entire reduction is six rules you can read, not a black box; we publish a full worked example on a closed sale with the real per-filter numbers, including the parts that didn't work; and we tell you flatly what we don't do (no buy/sell calls, no title search, no data guarantee). There's no upsell ladder, no $2,000 "masterclass," and nothing to buy — the research is free and the reasoning is all shown. Read the methodology and judge for yourself.

Yes. Every research post and the full Riverside brief are free to read, and the shortlist CSV is a free download — nothing is paywalled and there's no account to create. We're not running an upsell funnel or a paid course. If we ever publish a paid brief for a specific sale it will be clearly marked and entirely optional; the free research stands on its own.

No. We produce "worth a closer look" or "probably skip, here's why," never "bid" and never a number. Your maximum bid depends on your capital, your risk tolerance, and diligence only you can do on a specific parcel. A model has none of that, so it doesn't get a vote on the decision.

Whenever a California county posts its next list — usually about 90 days before the auction. Subscribe to the newsletter and we'll email you the day a list drops, with the sale dates and a first read on what's in it.

California tax-deed counties, one sale at a time, as each county posts its list. Published so far: Riverside, Santa Cruz, San Bernardino, Mariposa, Butte, Fresno, Kern, Placer and El Dorado — every upcoming sale we can reach is in the calendar above, and subscribers hear which one we're reading next.

They will — counties pull parcels as owners pay their taxes, sometimes right up to the sale. That churn is normal, and it's why the diligence checklist ends with a sale-morning re-check of the live auction list. The brief tells you what cleared the bar when the list was published; the final word on what's still biddable is always the auction platform.

No for most sales — many California counties run their auctions online; each brief names the platform for that sale. Out-of-area diligence is harder, though, and the physical-inspection step doesn't go away.

No. The county PDF is the source of truth for the list, and we don't independently verify every owner name, tax-rate-area code, or bid amount against live assessor records. Automated valuations are a third-party model's estimates and are frequently wrong on atypical properties. Treat every number as a starting hypothesis to verify, not a fact.

Yes, always. The filtering gets you from "946 parcels, any of which could waste your money" to "175 that clear the structural bar, here's the reasoning on each." Pulling title, checking environmental records, and inspecting the property are still on you. The deed is yours; the eviction, if there is one, is still your problem.