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How to Buy and Sell
Property When Relocating for Work Posted: 27 Apr 2020 11:34 AM PDT Relocating for work can be both
exciting and stressful. One of the key elements you will have to deal with to
permanently transfer from one place to another is buying and selling
property. To make the task easier, check out the following expert advice.  Image source: https://pixabay.com/photos/airplane-travel-flight-seat-window-1209752/ Ask Your Employer
About a Relocation Package
If you are transferring within your
present company to a new location, you may be able to take advantage of a
relocation package. Talk to your employer about the possibility of relocation
packages and benefits. Your company could help with the cost
of the move, or it could provide temporary accommodation or provide
reimbursements for your moving costs. Your company may work with a
relocation management company to make the process of relocating run smoothly
and efficiently. Corporate relocation companies like ARC Relocation facilitate not only
housing but also all other relocation services required to move from one location
to another. As a transferee, ARC Relocation would assign you a Single Point
of Contact Relocation Counselor who is supported by an internal team for each
element of the relocation. That means you will be safe in the hands of a
professional who can help you with selling and buying properties and other
relocation services. Be Realistic About
Your Present Home’s Price to Sell Fast
Relocating will often mean you have
to sell your existing home quickly. But to do so, you may have to sell for a
lower price. That is not necessarily a bad thing. If a lower price enables
you to sell your property fast, you need to consider it. Otherwise, you could
fall into the trap of borrowing money to buy your new home while you wait for
your old property to sell. That can cost you more in the long run, so weigh
up your options and finances to find the best solution for you. Work Out Your
Financial Position
Once your home is on the market, you
will have an idea of how much it will sell for. You are then in a position to
work out your financial position so you can know how much you can afford to
spend on your new home. The purchase price could be the same cost as the
property you are selling, or you may wish to take some money out of the sale
to spend on other relocation
expenses. The area in which you are selling and the place to
which you are moving will contribute to how much it costs to buy and sell. Calculate your financial status to
figure out how much you can spend on your new home. Once you have a ballpark
figure for how much your current home will sell for, subtract the following
costs to determine your home sale proceeds: · Agent
commission · Taxes · Local
fees · Attorney
fees · The
remaining balance of your mortgage The remaining amount is the
approximate amount you will receive in profit from your home sale. You can
then weigh up the cost of living in your new location and begin searching for
properties. The post How to Buy and
Sell Property When Relocating for Work appeared first on RealtyBizNews: Real Estate News. |
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Top 4 Ways to Cut The
Inheritance Tax Posted: 27 Apr 2020 11:13 AM PDT When a person dies, their closest
family not only has to cope with their loss but also to deal with a lot of
formalities. For example, they need to take care of the probate
advance and the inheritance tax.  An inheritance tax should be
properly distinguished from an estate tax, according to the international tax
law. The first one is paid by a person who has inherited money or property of
the dead person, while the second one is a levy on the estate (including both
property and money) of this person. However, such a clear distinction is not
always visible in every country. When you are still alive, it is
worth taking all the necessary steps to cut the inheritance tax, so that most
of your estate could end up in your relatives’ pockets. In order to help you
with that, we have prepared a list of the top four ways to achieve it. 1. Prepare a will Preparing a will is the central
aspect of estate planning because it allows you to make sure that assets are
dispensed in accordance with your decisions. If there is no will, assets need
to be divided in the way that intestacy rules order, and can be liable to an
inheritance tax which could otherwise be evaded. It is crucial to take care
of the will as soon as possible in order to make sure the potential
inheritance tax bill will be maximally lowered. Also, keep in mind that an
inheritance tax does not work with assets inherited by a spouse. 2. Mind the alternate valuation date Normally, the fair market value of
the property on the day of decease constitutes the basis of the property in a
decedent’s estate. However, it happens that the executor may select the alternate
valuation date, namely six months after the day of death. This option is
possible only when it can reduce both the estate tax liability and the gross
amount of the estate. As a result, this can end up with a bigger inheritance
to the beneficiaries. If a property is sold or disposed of before that
six-month period is over, it is valued on the date of the sale. Also,
provided that the estate is not subject to the estate tax, the day of death
is the valuation date. 3. Make donations Some may perceive that as
counter-intuitive, but it happens that donating a part of your inheritance to
others really makes sense. Apart from the fact that you can help people in
need in this way, potentially, you can also offset the taxable income of your
inheritance with the tax deduction obtained for supporting a charity. Also, if you want to leave more
money to your family when you pass away, think about making annual gifts to
your beneficiaries when you are still alive. You can always give a particular
amount to each person without having to pay the gift taxes. As a result, you
will not only provide your loved ones with an immediate profit, but you will
also lower the size of your estate, which can be crucial if you are close to
the taxable value. To make sure you are staying up to date with the frequent
modifications in the estate tax laws, you should consult an estate planning
professional. 4. Reduce retirement account distributions If the inherited retirement assets
are not distributed, they are not taxable. Some rules may apply when the
distribution must happen, but only if the beneficiary is not a husband or
wife. In a situation where one of the
spouses dies, the other one typically is able to take over the IRA as their
own. Minimal distributions would start at the age of 72, the same as they
would work for the spouse’s own IRA. If the inherited retirement account
belonged to someone else than your husband or wife, the funds could be
transferred to an inherited IRA in your name. You need to start taking
minimum distributions the year of or the year after the inheritance – it also
applies to people who are not 72 years old yet. If a decedent was older than
you, you might think about choosing the “single life” method of counting the
necessary amount of distribution, based on your age. Your minimal
distributions will reduce, which means you will have to cover less tax on
them, and the money can grow for a longer time. These are just chosen ways to make
your inheritance tax lower, and in order to get more help in this issue, you
can contact an experienced and knowledgeable professional. Your future
beneficiaries will surely be grateful for taking all the steps to make them
receive as much money as possible. The post Top 4 Ways to
Cut The Inheritance Tax appeared first on RealtyBizNews: Real Estate News. |
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Online activity shows
home buyers are coming back
Posted: 27 Apr 2020 06:42 AM PDT After a mid-March dip around the
time the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, a new
Zillow analysis shows renewed interest in the housing market as Americans
adapt to this temporary normal, including in some U.S. markets that were most
affected in the early days of the outbreak.  Page views on for-sale listings on
Zillow and requests to be connected to a Zillow Premier Agent have ticked up
in April, and both are higher than they were a year ago. Purchase mortgage
applications, while still down 35% from a year earlier, are stabilizing.
Taken together, this suggests more buyers are considering a home purchase and
agents, sellers and buyers are becoming more comfortable using virtual
technology during the process while practicing social distancing. In early March, daily web traffic on
Zillow – measured for this analysis by page views on for-sale listings using
a seven-day trailing average – was trending somewhat higher than on
corresponding days a year earlier. The trendline took a turn after March 11,
dropping to as much as 19% below 2019 levels for the seven days ending March
22. But traffic has since picked up, outpacing or remaining just a few
percentage points behind 2019 levels through early April. An additional signal in home
shopping behavior is the rate at which Zillow visitors submit online requests
to connect with a real estate agent. While online requests to connect with a
Zillow Premier Agent dropped steeply in mid-March, they have since bounced back.
As of April 15, online Premier Agent connection requests were higher than
they were a year ago, due in part to increased video tour connections
offered. “The uptick in people browsing
for-sale listings combined with high-intent requests to be connected with an
agent reveals the resilience of Americans’ interest in shopping for homes on
Zillow,” said Zillow Economist Jeff Tucker. “These are encouraging signals
and time will tell if this interest will turn into more offers to buy and
transactions. The coronavirus pandemic has already cost an unprecedented
number of people their jobs, which will force many to put plans for a home
purchase on hold. Time will tell whether areas of the country with sharper
increases in homebuyer interest see quicker economic recoveries, if consumers
are feeling confident enough to consider a big purchase like a new home.” On a local level, the bounceback in
page views has come more quickly in some metros, including a few with high
numbers of COVID-19 cases. Traffic on for-sale homes in Los Angeles has been
higher than a year ago every day since the week ending March 31, including a
32% year-over-year increase for the seven-day period ending April 15.
For-sale traffic has trended similarly in metros such as Houston, Dallas, Atlanta,
Phoenix, Denver and Las Vegas. The recovery took longer in several
metros, only surpassing 2019 levels in the past week, including in Chicago,
Seattle, San Francisco and San Jose. And traffic on for-sale listings remains
down year-over-year in a few others, including New York, Philadelphia,
Boston, Detroit and Pittsburgh. The post Online
activity shows home buyers are coming back appeared first on RealtyBizNews: Real Estate News. |
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Ask Brian: What are
Some Ultra-Inexpensive DIY Projects During Stay at Home? Posted: 27 Apr 2020 06:42 AM PDT Ask Brian is a weekly column by Real
Estate Expert Brian Kline.
If you have questions on real estate investing, DIY, home buying/selling, or other
housing inquiries please email your questions to [email protected].  Question
from Renee in NM: Hi Brian, I’m sure you won’t
be surprised that my husband and I are one of the millions stuck inside our
home and almost flat broke right now. Neither of us is working from home so
we have a lot of time on our hands. We’ve worked out a routine that takes up
a fair amount of our time each day such as getting some exercise and doing a
better job of cooking our own meals. We’ve also been reading a lot and
watching too much TV but we don’t have kids so homeschooling isn’t taking up
time. If we could afford to buy more than the essentials, we would start a
home remodeling project but that’s not in the budget right now. We really
don’t even want to spend money on craft materials during these very
unpredictable times. Is there anything we can do to improve our home without
spending money? Answer:
Hello Renee. I’m going to take you at your word
and suggest a few ideas that cost absolutely nothing. Things that most people
can do with what they already have around the house or no materials at all.
These are going to be some very simple things like rearranging furniture and
deep cleaning parts of your home that might not get attention on a regular
schedule. Renee, you said you’re watching a lot of TV. Why not take a careful
look at how the furniture is arranged in the room where you watch TV the
most? Although the weather is warming, if you have a fireplace in the TV
room, consider positioning the TV at an angle near the fireplace so that you
can enjoy both at the same time. Let’s be realistic, most people don’t have a
room dedicated only to TV. For your furniture layout, you want to take into consideration
the two or four other activities the room is frequently used for. If you also
use the room for socializing, you can position the TV in a corner of the room
behind the chairs that guests sit in. Of course, you probably don’t have any
guests right now but it’s worth a thought for the future. Your own
comfortable chairs for TV watching can be facing the visitor couch with the
TV behind and above it. The drawback here is that if you have guests over to
watch TV with you, this arrangement doesn’t work. But if the room is large
enough, you can consider bringing in easy to move chairs when gusts want to
watch TV with you. Another option is using swivel chairs for guest seating.
Since you don’t want to spend money on furniture right now, you can plan the
layout to add swivel chairs later. Something similar can be done with a game
table if that is something you do regularly. There are other furniture related
changes you might try. If you have a montage of family or favorite photos on
display, this is a time to refresh or swap them out with newer or second
choice photos that you have stored away. Or maybe you have some paintings or
other wall hangings in storage to swap out with what has been on the walls
for a while. Also, take another look at your bookshelves. Maybe these are
organized just the way you want them or maybe they are disorganized. Either
way, this is a good time to take them all off the shelves for deep cleaning.
You can put them back on the shelves in an organized manner that could be by
subject, alphabetically, or by size. What have you been planning to clean
but just don’t seem to get to? You’re probably pulling out cleaning supplies
to disinfect your high-touch surfaces. What else needs a cleaning that you
procrastinate about? Think about the lampshades, ceiling light fixtures,
heating and air conditioner vents, dryer lint vent, baseboards, junk drawers,
and other drawers (bathroom, kitchen cabinets, cutlery drawer, laundry room
cabinets, etc.) that don’t get enough attention. This is the high allergy
season. You might want to go after places that allergens are hiding right
now. Something else to do that doesn’t cost anything is draining your hot
water tank to get the sediment out. Renee, I know these aren’t
incredibly creative ideas but they are worthwhile ways to spend time getting
things done that don’t normally get enough attention. How are you productively spending
your stay at home time? Please leave your comments. Our weekly Ask Brian column welcomes
questions from readers of all experience levels with residential real estate.
Please email your questions or inquiries to [email protected].  Author bio: Brian Kline has been
investing in real estate for more than 35 years and writing about real estate
investing for 12 years. He also draws upon 30 plus years of business
experience including 12 years as a manager at Boeing Aircraft Company. Brian
currently lives at Lake Cushman, Washington. A vacation destination, near a
national and the Pacific Ocean. The post Ask Brian:
What are Some Ultra-Inexpensive DIY Projects During Stay at Home?
appeared first on RealtyBizNews:
Real Estate News. |
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What is Broom Clean
Condition? Posted: 27 Apr 2020 04:02 AM PDT  Broom clean condition is a term
often used in the sale of residential real estate. It describes the
condition of a home at the transfer from the seller to the buyer in a
contract to purchase and/or a purchase and sale contract. What Does Broom Clean
Condition Really Mean?
Unfortunately, broom clean condition
is open to interpretation. There is no legal definition for broom clean
condition. It often leaves home sellers scratching their heads because
they are not sure how much to clean their home. Alternately, buyers
believe the home should have been left in better condition than it was. Meaning Of Broom Clean
Condition For Home Sellers
At the bare minimum, broom clean
means carpets are vacuumed, floors swept, counters and surfaces wiped and
free of any dirt and debris. Broom clean does not mean a deep
clean. It certainly does not mean it should be to the level of a
professional cleaning. Though many home sellers, who take
much pride in their home, opt to have a professional cleaning on their to do list
prior to closing. It is certainly a great gesture
towards the buyers, but not necessary by contract. A good rule of thumb is to leave
your home the way you would like it left if you were walking into it as a
buyer. Meaning of Broom Clean
Condition Mean For Home Buyers?
Unfortunately for home buyers, do
not expect the home to be eat of the floor clean and move-in ready when you
do your final walkthrough. Expect the home will not have trash
and debris and the condition of carpets, counters, light fixtures to be much
how you saw them when you last viewed the home. Plan on doing a deep, thorough clean
of your home on your own when you first move in. Or, if it is in your
budget hire a professional cleaning crew. The Devil in The
Details
It all boils down to…. what does
your contract say? Many home buyers and sellers will
just quickly peruse a contract and not fully understand the depth of the
contract. When a problem arises, it all falls back to the
contract. A real estate purchase and sale contract is a legal and
binding contract. Most purchase and sales contracts in
Massachusetts state the property is to be left in broom clean
condition. The contract will go further and state that the property
should be free of all personal belongings and debris. As a home buyer, if your contract
does not have any language regarding the condition of the property, have your
attorney add language discussing the condition the home should be in at
delivery.. We discussed broom clean. But
take it a step further. Personal belongings and
debris. Obviously, your taking your stuff with you. But debris,
this could be excess paint cans, building supplies, playground set,
etc.. If it isn’t nailed down it should probably leave the
property prior to closing. To avoid last minute closing issues,
check with the buyer before leaving anything, including paint cans.
Don’t assume anything. Personally, I wouldn’t want the burden of having
to dispose of every dried-out paint can that you have ever used on your
house. Get rid of it yourself. Sellers don’t use the closing as an
opportunity to leave behind unwanted items that are difficult to
remove. It will only lead to trouble. Final Thoughts On
Broom Clean Condition
Both home sellers and home buyers
should set their expectations of what broom clean condition means so there is
no disappointment come closing day. The post What is Broom
Clean Condition? appeared first on RealtyBizNews: Real Estate News. |
Inheriting and buying a house are very complicated financial transactions. And in such cases, it is best to turn to a professional for help. Read more here https://inheritanceadvanced.com/blog/how-long-does-probate-take/
Posted by: niks adonis | November 17, 2021 at 11:58 PM
Thank you. Very informative article.
Posted by: harold | November 17, 2021 at 11:55 PM