From Data to Capital: How Last Best Partners Scaled Tax Deed Investing Through Mount North Capital

In 2017, we were focused almost entirely on the tax lien side of the distressed real estate world. Through Tax Sale Resources, our role was clear: provide the best data and software tools to institutional investors bidding on thousands of liens at once. At the largest tax lien auctions, you're talking about 60,000+ parcels—the kind of volume that demands precision tools and national-level scale.

But as we stepped back and assessed the market, one thing became obvious: the number of institutional tax lien buyers was limited. And while we had a solid business, the ceiling felt low.

That’s when we began taking a closer look at tax deed investing—a completely different type of opportunity, and one with much broader demand.

A Different Investor, a Bigger Problem

Tax deed investors don’t look at 60,000 properties at once. They’re buying single assets. They’re on the ground. They’re walking properties. These investors approach each deal with a real estate investor’s mindset, not just a data-driven yield strategy.

We quickly realized the real barrier wasn’t data—it was capital.

Tax deed auctions are cash-only, and funds are often due same day—usually within hours of winning a bid. Traditional financing is off the table because the title isn’t insurable for months—sometimes over a year.

For most investors we spoke to, especially smaller operators and mom-and-pop shops, this was the bottleneck. They could find deals. They could execute. But their available cash was eaten up after just a few properties.

The First Attempt: Partnering with a Bank

We didn’t set out to become a lender.

At first, we approached a bank we’d worked with in the tax lien world—one already familiar with the nuances of title and collateral issues. We brought the model. We brought the data. We even helped them fill in gaps they needed to get comfortable with the risk.

Everything was lining up—except one thing.

The bank couldn’t figure out where to bucket tax deeds internally.
Was this real estate?
Was it a real estate security?

To be safe, they reached out to the SEC for clarification. The response?

“We’re not going to tell you where to put it.”

Not a yes, not a no—just ambiguity. And that ambiguity was enough to kill the deal.
The bank walked.

If the Door Closes, Open a Window

We had the data. We had the model. We had the demand. So we asked a simple question:

What if we just built our own fund?

In late 2020, we launched Mount North Capital Fund One, raising just over $1 million. The mission was clear: provide capital directly to tax deed investors who needed liquidity to win at auction.

Fund One was a success—and validated the demand. That led to Fund Two, launched in 2022, which scaled up to roughly 5–6x the volume of the first.

With the model now fully proven, we partnered with a larger capital provider. That partnership allowed us to scale again—10x beyond Fund Two—and extend financing solutions to a much broader investor base.

A Full-Stack Resource for Real Estate Investors

That initial experiment has reshaped how we operate.

What began as Tax Sale Resources, a pure-play data and software company, has evolved. With the addition of Mount North Capital, we’re now offering the capital, technology, and intelligence investors need to succeed in the distressed real estate space.

Under our parent company, Last Best Partners, we’ve grown from being just a provider of information—
to being the engine that powers the entire lifecycle of tax deed investing.

And we’re just getting started.

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