Reflections on Value Investing: 2008 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting: Detailed Notes

Financial investment advice for small amounts of money.

For someone with $50+ billion dollars in the bank, I wonder what a small amount really is?

Q23: With small sums of money, what strategies would you pursue?
WB: If I were working with small sums of money, it would open up thousands of possibilities. We found very mispriced bonds. We found them in Korea a few years ago. You made big returns but had to be small size. I wouldn’t be in currencies with small amount of money. I had a friend who used to buy tax liens. I’d look in small stocks or specialized bonds. Wouldn’t you say that Charlie?
CM: Sure.

Reflections on Value Investing: 2008 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting: Detailed Notes

More on tax lien certificates.

This really only applies to the U.S. though.  Nothing to add.

The system in Canada for dealing with delinquent taxes is much different than in the U.S. This is a non-technical, non-official, very much abbreviated summary of how it works in Canada: The local government does not take action on delinquent property taxes until they haven’t been paid for three years. Then any entity with an interest in the property (such as the mortgage holder) gets a chance to pay the taxes and foreclose on the property. If no such entity takes action, then the opportunity becomes available to the public, and the entire process can take four years. In Toronto, for example, they see just one or two of these a year open up to an investor.

If you want to find out more about how tax liens work and how common they are in a particular area, the best thing to do is to contact the real estate section of your municipality.