Why a mechanic built a tax lien tracker

I spent years as a mechanic before I ever bought a tax lien certificate. Before that, I tried a few different corners of real estate investing — the kind of things everyone tells you to try first. Rental property. Wholesaling. A short, expensive stint trying to flip a house I had no business touching. None of it fit the amount of capital and time I actually had.

Tax lien certificates were different. The rules are set by state statute, not by a landlord's mood or a contractor's schedule. You know the interest rate before you buy. You know the redemption period before you buy. The math is public record. That's the part that hooked me — I could actually verify what I was getting into before I committed money to it.

What I couldn't find anywhere was a simple way to track certificates once I owned them — interest accruing daily, redemption deadlines by state, all of it living in a spreadsheet that I inevitably let go stale. LienSimple is the tool I built for myself first. Everything on this site, from the state guides to the blog, comes out of that same experience: what I wish someone had told me before my first purchase, and what I still check before every one since.

How the data on this site is sourced

Every state guide on LienSimple cites the actual statute or official government source for its interest rate, redemption period, and auction rules — you'll find the citation and a link to the primary source on every guide page. Where we're not fully confident in a detail, the page says so explicitly rather than guessing. The full underlying dataset is public and downloadable on our dataset page, so you can verify it yourself rather than take our word for it.

What LienSimple is, and isn't

LienSimple is a tracking tool and a research reference, not a financial advisor. We don't sell certificates, manage money, or promise a return. Tax lien investing carries real risk — redemption isn't guaranteed to happen on any particular schedule, and state rules change. Always verify current rules against the official source before you bid, and treat everything here as a starting point for your own research, not a substitute for it.