FAQs

Parsell is a land research website for county tax sales. It puts tax deed auctions, tax lien auctions and over-the-counter (OTC) land from county rosters on one map, and pulls public records — county assessor and recorder records, FEMA flood zones, wetland maps, slope, soils, EPA sites and more — into one place so you can evaluate a parcel before you bid.

Think of it as Zillow for land you can actually afford. Every listing Parsell tracks is on the map, free to browse without an account, and with a free account every parcel has a free summary. Run a report on the ones that interest you for buildability, comparable sales, title and lien review, a valuation and a max bid, in minutes rather than days.

From first look to bid:

• Open the map. Browsing needs no account; a free account, no credit card, opens parcel details and the filters.
• Every tax deed auction, tax lien auction and over-the-counter (OTC) listing Parsell tracks is on it, screened for flood, wetlands, slope, road access and Superfund sites.
• Narrow it down with the filters, or describe what you want to AI Smart search on a paid plan.
• Click any parcel for a free summary: owner, lines, acreage, assessed value, zoning, sales history and the Parsell Estimate.
• Run a report before you bid: Quick look, Due diligence or Full, checking buildability, value, title and liens.
• Set your Max bid, so every listing shows the most you can pay and still hit your return.
• Track the properties you like on the auction calendar, and request financing from a third-party lender if you need it.
• Bid with the county. Parsell doesn't run the auctions; every listing links to the county's sale page or the auction platform, where you register and bid.

Anyone who wants to buy land at a county tax sale or over the counter. In practice, that means:

• Individual investors who bid at county tax deed auctions
• First-time land buyers who found a parcel at auction and want to know if it's worth pursuing
• Real estate attorneys doing pre-bid due diligence for clients
• Wholesalers and small firms working multiple counties

You do not need to be an experienced investor to use Parsell. The free tier is designed so that anyone can browse and understand what's available before spending a dollar.

Listings are live in 58 counties: Colorado (31), Washington (15), Oregon (7) and Arizona (5). Arizona and Colorado sell tax liens; the rest sell tax deeds and over-the-counter land. Every county has its own page, with its sale date and what's for sale, at parsell.ai/tax-sales.

You can also look up land that isn't for sale. Parcel lines and county records are on the map across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and most of Colorado. Recorder documents and comparable sales are deepest in Washington. If you want a county that isn't covered yet, email hello@parsell.ai.

No. Parsell is a research tool. Our automated title analysis — chain of ownership, lien detection, estate and heir flagging — is designed to help you understand title risk before you bid. It is not title insurance, not an attorney's opinion, and not a substitute for a professional title search on a property you've already won. See our Terms of Service for the full disclosure.

It comes down to one thing: counties aren't trying to make money on the sale. They're trying to recover unpaid property taxes.

Here's how it works. Every property owner in Washington pays annual property taxes to their county. When someone stops paying — because they've died, moved away, lost track of the property, or simply can't afford it — the unpaid balance grows. After several years, the county forecloses and takes the property back.

At that point, the county owns land it doesn't want. Counties aren't in the real estate business. They run roads, schools, and emergency services. Holding vacant land does nothing for them. So they sell it at public auction, and the opening bid is set at the amount of back taxes owed — often just a few thousand dollars.

A 10-acre parcel with $4,500 in unpaid taxes starts at $4,500. The county collects what it's owed. The winning bidder gets the land. Everyone moves on.

There's no hidden catch in the pricing. The land is cheap because the starting price is a tax debt, not a market price. The county's job is done the moment it recovers the taxes. What happens to the land after that isn't their concern.

The pricing mechanism is real — but "cheap" doesn't always mean "good deal." Some parcels are genuinely exceptional: bare land worth $80,000 starting at $5,000 because the previous owner simply stopped paying. Others are cheap for a reason — landlocked, unbuildable, or carrying title issues that survive the tax deed sale.

The low starting price reflects the tax debt, not the land's condition, buildability, or legal status. That distinction is exactly what Parsell helps you understand before you bid, not after.

The most common reasons a cheap parcel stays cheap:

• Unbuildable land — too much wetland, flood zone, or steep slope to develop
• No road access — landlocked parcels that require an easement to reach
• Surviving liens — HOA liens, federal tax liens, or other encumbrances that don't get wiped out by the tax deed sale
• Title complexity — estate deeds, missing probate, or tangled ownership histories that require a quiet title action to resolve
• No septic feasibility — bare land where soil conditions won't support an on-site sewage system

None of these are dealbreakers on their own — they just change the math. Parsell's reports surface all of them so you can price them into your bid rather than discover them after you've won.

Exactly what it's owed — the unpaid tax balance. Once that's recovered, the county is whole. It has no interest in the property's market value, no motivation to hold out for a higher price, and no stake in what you do with the land after the sale. The auction exists to make the county's tax rolls current again, nothing more.

This is fundamentally different from a bank foreclosure or an estate sale, where the seller is trying to maximize the price. At a county tax sale, the seller's goal is recovery, not profit. That's why the prices look the way they do.

When a property owner doesn't pay property taxes for several years, the county eventually forecloses and sells the property at public auction to recover the unpaid taxes. The winning bidder receives a tax deed — a deed from the county — rather than from the prior owner.

In Washington, this is called a Treasurer's Tax Foreclosure Sale. Each county holds one annually or periodically. The starting price is typically the amount of back taxes owed, which can be a fraction of the property's market value.

A tax deed sale sells the property itself — you become the new owner. A tax lien sale sells the right to collect the unpaid taxes, with interest. Most states sell deeds. About 20 sell liens, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland and New Jersey, and Parsell marks those auctions as "Lien auction" on the map.

Some properties don't sell at auction. The county keeps them and will sell them directly to anyone who asks the treasurer's office, with no auction and no waiting for a sale date. This is called "over the counter." There are two kinds, and they're different purchases:

• OTC: land (pink pins). The county owns the land and sells you the property itself. Depending on the state, these lists are called OTC listings, excess property, or tax-title land.
• OTC: liens (teal pins). Only in tax lien states. You aren't buying the land. You pay the property's back taxes and get a lien in return. If the owner pays the taxes off, you get your money back plus interest. If they don't, after a few years you can file to take the property.

The price on the pin is what you'd pay. For a lien, the report explains the interest you can earn and the deadlines that apply in that state.

Each county runs its auction differently. Some are in-person at the courthouse; others are online through platforms like Bid4Assets, RealAuction or GovEase. Every listing on Parsell links to the county's sale page or the auction platform, where you register and bid. On paid plans, the assistant can also explain how a county's sale works: deposits, payment terms and how bidding runs.

Yes, almost always. Most counties require you to register in advance — sometimes weeks before the sale — and bring or post a deposit. Check the county's sale page, linked from the listing, for its registration deadline and deposit well before the auction date.

You'll owe the county the full winning bid amount, usually within a few business days. The county then issues you a tax deed, which you record at the county auditor's office. After that, most buyers pursue a quiet title action to clear any remaining claims against the property and obtain title insurance.

Not automatically. A tax deed extinguishes most junior liens but may not extinguish all claims. HOA liens, federal tax liens, and certain other encumbrances can survive. This is why the title analysis in your Parsell report matters — it identifies what survives so you can budget for it. You should consult an attorney before bidding on any parcel with significant title risk.

A quiet title action is a court proceeding that legally resolves any outstanding claims against a property. For tax deed buyers in Washington, it's typically filed in Superior Court and costs $2,500–$6,000 for an uncontested action. Add your expected quiet title cost to your Max bid deal costs so it's priced into your bid.

The Parsell Estimate is our automated valuation of a parcel's market value. It's built on the county assessor's land value. In Washington that number is grossed up using the Department of Revenue's published assessment ratio so it reflects market value, not assessed value. In Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, the county's value is already meant to be a market value, so we start from it as published. Where we've measured how a county's values compare with its actual sales, as in Maricopa County and some Colorado counties, we adjust for the gap. New Mexico caps yearly increases in assessed value, so estimates there carry a wider range. The estimate is then discounted for encumbrances like wetland setbacks and flood zones.

It is a statistical estimate, not an appraisal. It should be used for relative comparison and triage — understanding whether a parcel is reasonably priced relative to its buildable value — not as a definitive opinion of worth.

It's built for bare land, which is what most tax sales offer. On improved properties (houses), our estimate carries more uncertainty.

Every estimate shows a confidence range. A narrow range means we have good data. A wide range means something is uncertain — missing slope data, thin comparable sales, or a property type we have less data on.

This can happen on flood-affected parcels. If a large portion of the parcel is in a Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA), the value discount from mandatory flood insurance and elevation requirements can pull the estimate below the assessed value — especially if the assessor hasn't fully adjusted for the flood exposure. The estimate card will explain the specific reason.

Some parcels are assessed at current use value (for farming or forestry) rather than market value. In those cases, we substitute a county median per-acre figure rather than lifting the assessor's deliberately-low number. Washington taxes standing timber through a separate harvest excise, so merchantable timber adds value that our bare-land estimate doesn't capture. Both are flagged prominently on the estimate card.

The parcel summary is free on every parcel, listed or not, with no monthly limit: the owner, property lines, acreage, address, assessed land and building value, zoning, land use, sales history and neighboring owners, plus the Parsell Estimate and how the opening bid compares to it. Listed parcels add flood, wetland and slope breakdowns. It's designed to help you triage a parcel in under a minute.

Three kinds, from a quick screen to everything Parsell can find:

• Quick look — a one-page screen: the county record, the hazard screen (wetlands, flood zone, slope, road access, Superfund distance, restricted groundwater, building moratoriums, zoning), the Parsell Estimate and a max bid.
• Due diligence — everything in a Quick look, plus whether the zoning allows a house, septic feasibility, utility providers, comparable sales, neighboring owners, and the parcel's recorder documents: the current deed, liens and deeds of trust, easements, probate records and which liens survive the tax sale.
• Full report — everything in Due diligence, with up to 10 comparable sales and the full chain of title, plus a site analysis from aerial imagery (land cover, buildings, driveways, power lines, what changed since 2010) and highest and best use. The site analysis is in beta. Every report has a plain-English summary and a PDF download, and you can combine up to 25 parcels in one report. Free includes one Quick look; paid plans include monthly allowances of each. See parsell.ai/features and parsell.ai/pricing.

Title analysis is in Due diligence and Full reports. Parsell pulls the parcel's recorder documents from the county and checks:

• Chain of ownership (every recorded transfer)
• Lien detection and series grouping (HOA liens, judgment liens, tax liens)
• Deed of trust / mortgage check (open vs. reconveyed)
• Estate and heir detection (flags when title passed through an estate)
• Federal and state tax lien check
• Easements and CC&Rs
• Survival determination (which liens survive the tax sale under that state's law)

Due diligence covers the current deed and what's open against it; the Full report traces the full chain of title. In most Washington counties, recorder coverage is certified from January 1, 1994. Earlier records are accessible through the WA State Digital Archives.

The max bid is the most you can pay at auction and still make the return you want. On paid plans, Parsell shows it on every listing on the map. It's calculated as:

Parsell Estimate (low, middle or high end)
× your value rules
− selling cost, deal costs and holding costs
− your margin
± your dollar rules
= Max bid

Every input is shown so you can see exactly what's driving the number.

Yes, on the Max bid page. You can:

• Pick a bidding style (Conservative, Balanced or Aggressive) or shape your own margin curve
• Set your selling cost, deal costs, yearly holding cost and how long you'll hold
• Turn on "don't bid when" switches: too much wetland, flood zone or floodway, no road access, near a Superfund site, steep slope, too little usable land, an existing building, or a restricted groundwater area
• Write rules that skip a parcel, add or subtract dollars, adjust per acre, or scale the value when conditions you choose are met, and formula rules on Pro and Investor
• Save presets, and use different settings for each state or county
• Set tax lien terms per state: interest rate, months to redemption, deed costs and a worst-case cap
• Ask the Max bid assistant to explain the number or change your settings in plain English

Bidder saves 3 max bids, Pro 25 and Investor unlimited. Max bid isn't on the Free plan.

Smart search is Parsell's AI assistant on the map, on paid plans. Describe the land you want the way you'd say it — "buildable parcels over 5 acres under $10,000 with road access in Washington, no flood zone" — and it counts the matches, sets the area and filters, runs the search, then has AI check what's left against anything a filter can't express. It works the map for you: base maps, overlays and the filter bar.

Open a property and it answers about that lot. It can read the report, look at the aerial, measure wetlands, streams and flood zones on the lot and turn those layers on, give the lot's dimensions, and spot private roads, utility strips and other special-purpose parcels. It can explain how a county's sale works, and it hands max bid questions to the Max bid assistant. When an answer needs a report, it offers a Run report button, and your chats are kept in a history beside the map. Smart search and the Max bid assistant share one monthly pool of AI chat messages: 30 on Bidder, 150 on Pro and 500 on Investor.

It means title passed through a deceased person's estate at some point in the chain of ownership — typically a deed from "[Name] Estate" to the current owner. This matters because if the estate was never properly probated, heirs of the deceased may retain claims to the property. Where Washington court records are online, Parsell checks for a probate case and whether it's closed. Where they aren't, the report notes that the probate check still needs to be done by hand.

For bare land parcels that aren't connected to a sewer system, septic feasibility tells you whether an on-site sewage system (septic) is likely installable. Parsell checks existing documented septic records, SSURGO soil data, well logs from nearby properties, water table depth, lot size, and required setbacks to produce a determination: a documented existing septic, sewer available, likely feasible, marginal, likely infeasible, or a perc test needed. It's in Due diligence and Full reports. A parcel where a septic can't be installed can't be built on.

The composition bars show you how your parcel's acreage is distributed across flood zones, wetlands, and slope grades. If you have 18 acres and 4 of them are in a regulatory floodway, you'll see that as a proportional segment of the bar. It's faster than reading a table and makes the tradeoffs immediately visible.

Yes. Anyone can open the map without an account and see every tax deed auction, tax lien auction, OTC land and OTC lien listing Parsell tracks, with the price, acreage and sale date on each pin, property lines, and the flood, wetlands, public land and topo overlays. A free account, no credit card, adds:

• The parcel summary on every parcel, listed or not, with no monthly limit
• Ownership, zoning and the map overlays (flood, wetlands, streams, slope, soils, utilities, wildfire, EPA sites and more) on road, USDA aerial and USGS topo base maps
• Every filter: sale type, price, acreage, buildable land, road access, flood, wetlands, slope, zoning, price against the Parsell Estimate and auction date
• The county auction calendar, and tracking for 3 properties
• 1 Quick look report on a parcel of your choice (phone verification is required first)
• Financing requests to our third-party lender

Paid plans add monthly allowances of Quick look, Due diligence and Full reports, AI Smart search, Max bid on every listing, Google satellite, historical imagery, Street View, unlimited tracking and site markup. Plans are Bidder at $19.99/month, Pro at $79.99/month and Investor at $249.99/month, and annual billing costs at least 15% less.

Yes, on every plan, Free included. Parsell offers financing through an independent third-party lender; Parsell itself isn't a lender and doesn't make loans. At the end of any report there's a short request form. Fill it in and Parsell passes it to the lender, who gets in touch. Requesting is free and doesn't commit you to a loan, and the lender sets the terms and makes every lending decision.

To keep accounts secure. We do not use your phone number for marketing.

The same four plans as parsell.ai/pricing.

Annual plans are billed once a year and cost at least 15% less than paying monthly. Monthly allowances reset on the 1st (UTC) and don't roll over. Every plan is one seat: one person signs in, and the allowances are theirs. Unlimited is fair use: enough to run an acquisition pipeline, not enough to mirror our data.

Yes. Free includes one Quick look, and after that you can buy reports one at a time from the Billing page or when you run one: 5 Quick looks for $4.99, Due diligence $19.99, Full $39.99. Past a paid plan's monthly allowance, extras are charged at that plan's price. Bought Due diligence and Full reports don't expire. A Quick look pack lasts until the end of the month you buy it.

Yes, from the Billing page. A subscription you cancel stays active until the end of the period you've paid for, then moves to Free. A plan from an access code can be switched to Free in Account settings. Partial periods aren't refunded.

No. Payments are final, including partial subscription periods and extra reports, except where the law requires a refund. If an extra report you paid for fails to generate, it goes back to your account to use again.

No. Parsell is a property research tool. Information about property owners and heirs is surfaced for the sole purpose of property due diligence. It may not be used for employment screening, tenant screening, credit decisions, or any other FCRA-regulated purpose. See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

All data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest. We do not sell your personal information. See our full Privacy Policy at parsell.ai/privacy.