The Investor Strategy Guide

The preview showed you that winning bidders are overpaying. The guide shows you who they are, what they pay, and where your own number should stop.

2026 sale begins Monday, August 24 · sealed bids due 5pm Wednesday, August 26

One document, delivered on purchase. It covers St. Louis County's delinquent-tax sale for sale years 2020 through 2024 — 5,116 bids across 2,141 parcels, counting every bid placed rather than only the winning ones, joined to county parcel and assessment data.

What is in it

01Who overpays, and on what. What separates a parcel won at 3× the runner-up from one won at 1.1×.
02The repeat buyers, by name. Entry year, exit year, win rate, and margin trend across five sales — the continuity the public record hides, because bidder numbers are reissued annually and none survives three sales.Records in hand
03How the regulars bid. Three postures — the one-parcel entrant, the specialist who farms a single property type, and the bidder who submits again and again and never wins, because a sealed sale never tells them how far under they were. The low bid that wins parcels for the biggest buyers needs volume most bidders cannot fund; at small scale it wins nothing.
04What parcels have actually sold for, as a share of county appraised value, broken out by school district, land use, and value band.
05A ceiling calculator. Enter your parcel, get the RSMo 140.340 math on your number, not ours.Calculator
06Which parcels have already redeemed, refreshed as the county posts payments.Updated

Where the data comes from

County bid records and bidder-registration rosters — some obtained under the Missouri Sunshine Law, some supplied by a St. Louis County real-estate attorney — matched back to bid numbers one sale year at a time, then joined to county parcel and assessment data.

What it does not do

01It names no price for any parcel. The calculator runs the statutory math on a number you enter. It recommends no bid and forecasts no sale.
02Two sale years are incomplete. Buyers are named in full for 2021, 2022 and 2024. For 2020 the coverage is 56%, because the county's unsuccessful-bidder file that year carries no bidder numbers to join on — so every 2020 figure is a floor, not a total. For 2023 no roster has been released; our records request is paid and outstanding.
03It is market research, not advice. Not legal, tax, or investment advice.

$249

One purchase, one document. Delivered on purchase.

If our outstanding records request releases the 2023 roster, buyers receive the addendum at no charge. If it is not released, there is no addendum — we will not promise a document the county has not given us.

To purchase, write research@mosaicsyndicate.com and we will send a payment link.

Methodology: compiled from St. Louis County delinquent-tax sale bid records covering every bid placed, not only winning bids — 5,116 bids across 2,141 parcels, sale years 2020–2024 — joined to county parcel and assessment data. Figures are reproducible from the county bid record. This document is market research. It is not legal, tax, or investment advice, it recommends no bid on any parcel, and it forecasts no future sale. We strive to exceed your expectations with honesty and transparency.