Every year the Marion County Treasurer offers tax-delinquent parcels at a tax sale, and the City of Indianapolis/Marion County publishes the results with a status for every parcel. It is the distress signal Propertiz has in Indianapolis today. Propertiz reads it every day, ties each entry to one of the county's roughly 347,000 parcels, and keeps the owners who haven't paid or redeemed.
How Indiana's tax sale works
Indiana sells a lien first and the property later. The steps are set by the Indiana Code.
- The annual sale. Each county holds a tax sale once a year, usually between August and October, for parcels with delinquent taxes from the prior year (IC 6-1.1-24). The list of parcels is published about three weeks before the sale, so it doubles as a list of delinquent owners.
- The certificate. The winning bidder gets a tax sale certificate. The owner keeps the property for now.
- Redemption. The owner has one year to redeem. After that, the certificate holder can petition for a tax deed (IC 6-1.1-25).
- Unsold parcels. A parcel that doesn't sell goes to the county commissioners' certificate sale, which has a shorter redemption period of 120 days.
Marion County runs its tax sale online on GovEase. The 2026 sale ran October 13 to 16.
What the tax-sale list shows
The list has one row per parcel for each year it was offered, going back to 2008, and each row carries its current status. The statuses that matter to an investor are these.
- Sold. A buyer holds the tax certificate and the owner is inside the redemption period.
- County lien. The parcel didn't sell and goes on to the commissioners' sale.
- Payment plan. The owner is paying under a payment plan.
- Bankruptcy. The parcel is in a bankruptcy.
- On list or pending. These count as open too.
Parcels marked satisfied, owner redeemed, removed, deleted or deed issued are closed. Propertiz reads the three most recent sale years and turns the open entries into one unpaid-tax signal per parcel, with the sale's minimum bid as the amount and the number of years still open. When a parcel leaves the open statuses, it drops off.
A sold certificate is the strongest of these. The owner has a redemption deadline running, and once it passes the certificate holder can petition for a tax deed. Some owners pay. Some would rather sell before the deadline. A payment plan suggests the owner is working to keep the property.
The rest of the Marion County roll
Parcels and owners come from the Marion County assessor roll, published by the City of Indianapolis/Marion County. The owner's mailing address shows absentee and out-of-state owners. Value is the county assessor's assessed value, and Indiana assesses at 100% of market value-in-use.
The roll has gaps that shape every Marion lead.
- Bedrooms are estimated. The roll has no building details. Propertiz estimates bedrooms from the largest building footprint on the parcel, from the City of Indianapolis/Marion County building footprints. There is no story count, so the footprint stands in for living area. The estimate for a one-unit home tops out at three bedrooms.
- No square footage or year built.
- No homestead deduction. The roll doesn't show it, so whether the owner lives in the house stays unknown.
Rents come from HUD's market rents, and the DSCR is calculated at your purchase price. Indiana caps property tax at 1% of assessed value for a homestead and 2% for other homes (IC 6-1.1-20.6), so a rental, or a home that loses its homestead deduction when it sells, pays the higher cap. Test your own numbers with the DSCR calculator.
What isn't in Marion County yet
Coverage is partial: unpaid taxes and owner signals today.
- Foreclosure filings and lis pendens. Indiana forecloses through the courts, and the filings wait on Indiana's court data. The statewide court portal blocks automated access.
- Sheriff sale dates. Marion County's sheriff sales run online on GovEase. They wait on the auction vendor's OK.
- Probate filings.
- Code-enforcement cases. The city's open code-enforcement dataset stops in February 2024.
- Sale history. It is coming from Indiana's sales-disclosure files.
In Indiana, Propertiz has unpaid-tax signals for Indianapolis and South Bend. See the Marion County page for the current list and the Indiana overview for the state.
Working Marion County leads
All data is public under Indiana's Access to Public Records Act (IC 5-14-3). Parcel and tax-sale data: City of Indianapolis/Marion County, IN.
Contact owners respectfully. Mail first. Indiana's Do Not Call list (IC 24-4.7) has no exemption for investors, and IC 24-5-14 limits autodialed and recorded calls, so follow those and the federal TCPA before any call or text.
No leaseback or "save your home" offers to owners in foreclosure; Indiana's mortgage rescue fraud law (IC 24-5.5) covers them.