This purpose of this project is to confirm or disprove three hypothesis described in the Motivation section related to investor behavior as demonstrated in past tax liens auctions conducted in Larimer county Colorado between 2004 and 2014. The study is based on historical data obtained from the Larimer County Treasurers office.
Having been a tax lien investor since 2004, I observed what appeared to be, at least on the surface, 'irrational' behavior by the more 'deep-pocketed' (DP) investors. By DP, I mean those that partake in premium bidding (which will be explained later in this document). From these observation, I formed 3 hypotheses:
- On average, investors who partake in premium bidding lose money more frequently then they make money.
- On average, investors who partake in premium bidding lose more money than they make from premium bidding.
- Note: This hypothesis is independent of the first hypothesis. In other words, investors can lose money even if they make money more often than they lose. Similarly, they can make money even if they lose money more often they make it.
- On average, the amount of risk an investors takes on through premium bidding is inversely proportional to the base amount of the lien.
- In other words, the higher the amount of the lien, the less risk an investor is typically willing to take on where risk is measured in the number of months needed to break even (abbreviated as M2BE).
The above hypotheses are testable if enough of the following data can be obtained:
- tax lien identifier
- base amount of the tax lien
- amount of premium paid for each applicable lien
- amount redeemed
The amount redeemed was currently not available in the publically accessible database as of the last commit of this README. The data was obtained by requesting it specifically from the county and paying them for this information.
TODO - describe how the bidding process works in Larimer county
TODO