Have you ever wondered how to be the nice guy and still help people by not taking their homes from them?  I recently talked to a person that was concerned with taking the home from the owner by buying the tax lien on the home that someone lives in.  I went on to explain that first of all you are actually giving the person that owns the home a longer chance to hang on to their home by paying their back taxes.  Sure they will have to pay more by paying some interest to you but you are doing them a favor and it's actually like giving them a loan on their taxes at a fair rate of interest.  This buys them time and maybe a year from now, and the homeowner may have a different situation in their financial arena and be able to redeem their property. Let's say perhaps that the homeowner doesn't get the chance to redeem the property and two or three years go by, you have purchased all of the tax liens and now it is going to foreclosure; you can be the nice guy by letting the homeowner now pay the rent to you and possibly do a rent to own and let them buy it back.  There are many ways of helping the homeowner and still coming out ahead. This is one where everyone has a better feeling about the situation at hand when your home has gone up for tax lien.  You can work with a previous homeowner also if you are purchasing a tax deed.  Perhaps it is in a redeemable deed state, such as Texas, where you have paid for the home but it still has a redemption period.  This is a time when you will be collecting rent from the person who is living in the home.  In order to help them out you may want to continue to rent to them even though they may not be able to redeem the home.  This helps them to stay in a home and have a place to live, allows you to gain a property, and, if you choose to do so, you could turn around and sell the property back to the previous owner. This really makes you the nice guy!!!!!