The Real Estate and Property Tax Blog

Taxes paid on property assessed by a local government or other taxing authority are deductible when paid.

Common fees include taxes paid to your city, county, or school district.

If you have a mortgage, usually the total amount is reported on your mortgage interest statement (IRS Form 1098). In addition to real estate taxes, the interest recipient may use box 5 to give you other information, like the address of the property that secures the debt, and insurance paid from escrow.

Real estate taxes get reported on Schedule E if it’s an investment property. Generally, the amount will not include taxes charged for local benefits and improvements that increase the value of your property. For example, real estate taxes connected with assessments for improvements are not deductible when paid. Instead, they are added to the cost of the land.

Everyone’s tax situation is different, and this information should not substitute professional advice. Taxpayers should always consult with their tax advisors to consider specific factors that might affect their situation.

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Once the decision has been made to sell a home, the goal is clear. You want to sell your home for a reasonable price as quickly as possible. No one wants his home to stay on the market for six months to a year, but it does happen. With increasing competition in the housing market, it is necessary to prepare your home for sale before placing it on the market. You want to have every advantage when entering the market. To that end, staging a home for sale is an integral part of marketing your home to potential buyers. There are several key areas to consider when staging a home.

Do Not Overprice Your Property

The stage is set well before a potential buyer enters your home. A buyer can infer many things from the price of your home. An overpriced home stays on the market. Homes that are on the market for too long or have several reductions in price are viewed with suspicion. If a home is priced too high, not only does it not sell, it is viewed as a home with potential issues.

Organize Your Closets

Closet space is extremely important to potential buyers. No matter how spacious your closets are, if they are cluttered, they will appear small. By organizing your closets, you enhance the impression of space in the closet itself and present an overall sense of tidiness and organization throughout the house.

Make Your Home Shine

Low wattage light bulb might conserve energy, but you want your home to be well illuminated when for showings. Replace you low wattage bulbs with higher wattage bulbs. Professional home stagers advise giving your windows a thorough cleaning. This will allow natural light to easily pass through your windows and into the home.

Hire a Professional Real Estate Agent

Agents undergo extensive real estate courses in order to learn how best to market and present a property.

Their experience and expertise is invaluable when it comes time to sell your home. Your agent is there to guide you through the process of staging and ultimately selling your home. 

Complete Any Small Repairs to Your Home

It is astonishing what potential buyers notice when they are viewing a home. It is easy for your eyes to gloss over handprints on the walls, scuffmarks on the foyer floor, and poster holes in the walls, but those interested in purchasing your home will certainly notice them. Make sure these minor repairs are completed before you begin showing your home.

Remove Any Personal Items from the Home

Everything that makes you house your home can prevent potential buyers from connecting with the house. You want those who view your house to establish a connection with the house. They need to be able to imaging themselves living in your house.

To help establish this connection, you should remove any personalized photos, religious items, and other personal touches. Many agents undergo real estate training courses focused on home staging. Your agent will likely be able to help your present your home in the best possible light. They may advocate rearranging existing furniture or renting furniture from a staging service. These new items can totally transform a home, and they are often well worth the additional expense. 

Before you decide to put your home on the market, ensure that you are mentally prepared for the process of selling your home. Removing yourself from your home while allowing strangers to tour your home can be stressful, but in order to sell your home quickly, these things must be done. Your agent will be able to advise you about what will be required to sell your home in a timely manner. Make sure you are committed before putting your home on the market.

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Whether you are relocating because of work or because you have recently purchased a home that would be able to accommodate your growing family, you need to be sure that you remember a couple of things to make the process of moving as smooth and as organized as possible.

As soon as you know you are relocating, make a list of all the tasks that you need to do including packing, looking for Philadelphia moving companies and changing your billing and mailing address. By doing this, you can create a schedule that you and your family can stick to so that everything that needs to be taken care of will be. It would also prevent you from having to deal with stressful last-minute errands.

You should also try to minimize the amount of items you would be bringing to your new location. This can be done by sorting out all of your belongings, including your furniture and appliances into three categories: items to pack; items to toss out; and items to sell or give away. Make sure to get rid of all the things that you would no longer be using so that you would not be bringing clutter into your new home.

Another important task that you need to remember to do months before the day of the move would be checking out the services and rates of several Philadelphia moving companies. By searching for one early on, you would be not only be able to get the best rates for the services that you need for the move but also have the peace of mind that your belongings would be safe and secure on the hands of a reputable moving company during transit.

Enlisting the help of all of the members of your family would also be a great way to make the moving process more manageable. If you would be moving with your family, you can actually assign or delegate tasks to the whole family, even your younger children. Doing this would not just make it easier for you and your spouse but also make the relocating more memorable and enjoyable for the entire family.

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Many people like the idea of turning the equity that is locked into their homes into fast cash. Many home owners who have accumulated significant equity in their properties prefer to turn that equity into real cash before they die. Specific equity release schemes that are designed for such people can help you achieve this goal. It doesn’t matter if you have a residential mortgage or a buy to let mortgage outstanding on your property, you can still release equity from your home pretty quickly.

The key requirement for a person to be able to release equity is that they are aged 55 or older. The other important factor of course is the fact that there should be sufficient equity available on the property. So that means if you still have a mortgage outstanding on your property, the value of mortgage must be minimal when compared to the value of your house.

There are of course many other factors that determine if you can release equity with a mortgage from your property. In order to find out if you really can release equity from your property it is advised that you have a chat with a qualified broker of equity release products. You can have a chat with your family and friends to see if they could make recommendations of good financial advisers or do some thorough research on the Internet to find out what your options are. The key here is to do as much research as possible into equity release mortgage products to make sure that you find the best deal that suits your specific financial requirements

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In the Lone Star State, there are dozens of moving companies if not hundreds even.  Austin being the capital city of Texas has its own fair share of moving companies.  There are some moving companies that have a representative office in Austin or various other cities in Texas and there are also homegrown local moving companies in Austin that, depending on the size, either operate a relatively small moving company ala one man and one van or local moving companies that have expanded and grown in size and reach.

However, you should do some research before committing yourself to any one company as not all the local moving companies in Austin provide relocation outside of the state of Texas.  Some of these companies only operate within Austin itself or the immediate vicinity or only to certain cities in Texas.  Others may only service certain states and not the whole of the U.S.

There are quite a number of local moving companies that have reputably established themselves as professional home moving companies and take pride in the quality and variety of their services.  Many home moving companies will be able to provide packages that are tailored to suit your budget and needs.  Some people may not need any storage space for example while others will require not only storage space but also transportation services. Professional moving companies will be able to recommend the best options that suit individual needs.

In addition to the run of the mill moving, packing, assembling and reassembling, transportation and storage services, some local moving companies will also offer a member of their staff to serve as liaison.  They will be responsible for the careful planning of the relocation as well as assist in the moving process and in some cases also serve as a relocation guide in your new city of residence.

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Vermont Property Transfer Tax

By the Real Estate Attorney

First enacted in 1968, the Vermont Property Transfer Tax is a tax on the sale of Vermont real estate which is imposed at the time a deed is presented to the town clerk for recording. The buyer is liable for the tax unless the parties agree that the seller will pay the tax.

At present, the tax rate is 1.25% of the sale price of the real estate being sold. Two lower tax rates exist for particular types of property:

1) For property that will be the primary residence of the buyer, the transfer tax is lowered to .5% on the first $100,000 of the sale price, but rises to the regular rate of 1.25% for that portion of the sale price that is above $100,000. Some lower income buyers pay 0% on the first part of the tax.

2) For property that is enrolled in the state’s current use program (a program which reduces property taxes on agricultural and forest land) or for property which is a working farm at the time of the transfer, the transfer tax is lowered to .5% of the entire sale price. Under a bill (H.485) that was vetoed in 2010, the transfer tax on enrolled current use land would have risen to 1.25%. [Current use land which is “developed” may also be subject to a penalty of 10% or 20% of the fair market value of the property at the time it leaves the program, depending on how long it was in the program.]

The law provides for several exemptions from the tax. Some of these include: a transfer directly to a creditor to secure a debt; a transfer without payment between a husband and wife, parent and child, grandparent and grandchild, or partners in a civil union; and transfers to a corporation, partnership or LLC at the time of formation, if no gain or loss is recognized under the federal tax code.

Usually the property transfer tax form is filled out by the seller’s attorney and signed by the parties at the closing. Note that the tax only applies to real property, so any personal property – such as kitchen appliances, furniture, etc. – is not taxed. The greater the percentage of the total sale price that is allocated to personal property, the lower the property transfer tax will be.

Read the full article here

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Wellington Florida Real Estate News- Your Property Taxes

Your property taxes may be going up even though your property values went down. Because the village of Wellington and Palm Beach county lost money because of the downturn in the market they are still not willing to stop hiring their sisters and aunts and uncles for positions that should be cut off in this economy.

You should have received your proposed tax bill in the mail by now.

In the state of Florida you pay your property taxes in arrears. That means that you live in your house for a year and then you pay the property taxes for the year you just lived in your house. Many states you pay ahead of time so this is sometimes confusing to new residents when they relocate to Florida and even more so when it comes time to sell your home because you are going to have to pay your prorated share of property taxes at the closing.

46% of all the residents of Palm Beach county will be paying more in property taxes next year than they did last year even though your property values declined. 36 towns in Palm Beach County are also increasing their municipal taxes which are a part of your tax bill. Even with higher tax bills the county will still collect less in taxes.

Wellington Florida’s current rate is $2.34 and it is proposed to go up to $2.8 an increase of 19.7%.

Port St Lucie in St Lucie county is going to have one of the largest tax hikes, a whopping 34.7%! OK, the prices have plummeted in Port St Lucie to the point where you can buy a 2500 square foot house, under air footage, for less than $150,000! This has made it possible for public workers such as teachers and police officers be able to buy a home again. Then they get shocked with a tax bill hike! It is all relative I tell our clients. You pay for a cheaper house you make up for it in taxes.  The city of Port St Lucie lost 11 million dollars in revenue due to the decline in their market and the city counsel says they will have to close all the parks if they don’t raise taxes. I don’t think that is the case. I think with proper planning and saving this could have all been avoided. What do they do with all the money during the good times?

Local governments need to cut their expenses. They don’t need to pay top dollar for all the services. For instance, here in Wellington Florida they saved a lot of money by not cleaning the park bathrooms 3 times a day. Just by reducing the cleaning by one time per day they saved a lot of money. Also, if the cities would stop using expensive cleaning products and simply use vinegar and baking soda, not only would they save a ton of money, they would also avoid toxins.

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ARIZONA REAL ESTATE TRANSFER TAX (RETT)  -  ONE MORE BURDEN ON TAX PAYERS

A few months ago, members of the Arizona Association of REALTORS^® (AAR) received an informational mailing titled Support the No New Home Tax Ballot Measure.     Did you read it?

Since this has come up in the past, AAR wants to stop the RETT, for good this time, by adding it to the November 2008 ballot.

For those who are not familiar with this type of taxation, following is some information from the AAR flyer.

Just what is a Real Estate Transfer Tax? A state and/or local tax or fee imposed on real property that typically, is assessed according to the sales price of real estate property, when transferred.  Other states transfer taxes range from .001% to 2.2% and once initiated, the rate can increase to meet future legislative enactments.

Problems listed include:

Creates Double Taxation – Governments already collect taxes on your property based on its value.  A RETT would be an additional tax impacting your home or property.

Damages Equity – The overall equity earned by the seller is reduced by a tax on the total value, including the amount you owe on your mortgage(s).

Impacts Lower Incomes – Lower income households typically spend a larger percentage of their income on their home.  A RETT would impose a higher tax burden on teachers, police officers, fire fighters, health care workers, etc.

This website has more information and is definitely worth reading.

One last thought, this affect buyers and sellers alike.  In a buyers market, like we’re in right now, the seller would be forced to take the hit.  In a sellers market (think 2005) the buyer could end up being forced to ‘pay’ the tax.  So, the price of a home will be affected no matter what the market is.

I’d like to know what others in Arizona, both REALTORS^® and consumers, are thinking and feeling about the Arizona Real Estate Transfer Tax.

Also, if you are in a state or area that currently has a Real Estate Transfer Tax, please feel free to talk about what you know, think and feel about it.

Links to other articles and information about RETT.

 

SEVRAR members can pick up brochures at the office in Mesa.

graphics courtesy of iCLIPART

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