Wow!

Meanwhile, my parents are sitting in the condo they bought after Wilma ate their mobile home, (they bought and then sold another MH in the meantime, but that's another related story) watching the tube when who shows up but Marie!

Marie is a friend who still lived at the park and was leading a protest of gummers who had just been told "you have 60 days to vacate the premises and take that outhouse on wheels with you or I'm gonna charge you for getting rid of it!"

Apropos of not much.

Mr. A

Guys…just an update.  Finished the taxes for 2006 last night.   The massive tax deductions associated with the 3 rental properties gives us an $8500 tax refund for the year.

OUCH!!!  That's rough.

Any way you can adjust your W-4 this year to avoid this from happening again?

Sometimes I run into this same situation...no way to avoid it if you have alot of deductions.

scrim

i know…gotta fix that next year.

Real Estate is a “can’t lose” proposition if one is below age 30/35. The reality is if one has invested in real estate any time after 1992 the price has went up.



Many of my friends who are late 20 or early 30 somethings have this cant lose mentality. Its freaking crazy. With home/condo inventory at a record high and interest rates rising the only pressure in on prices to drop. One may say, "It’s long term."



That is good, I suppose, but don’t be foolish and think there is never bad times. Donald Trump damn near lost it all in the 90’s. I would also suspect that every local market has an akilies heal.



Now as property is appreciating everything is great. When the market turns things get nasty. Think about it. Tenent loses job and they are pissed off so they screw you over. At the same time you have to pay taxes and mortgage. Home is losing value. It can get nasty and I suspect it will.



Beyond the obvious that rates are rising and home inventory the economy is cyclical. Typically real estate is 7, but today we are going into 9. This means that it is probable that real estate will turn. On top of this the economy has been a bull for a long time. I don’t want to be a bear, but maybe I am.



Are forclosures counted within the number of unsold homes?

[quote=AirForce]Real Estate is a “can’t lose” proposition if one is below age 30/35. The reality is if one has invested in real estate any time after 1992 the price has went up.



Many of my friends who are late 20 or early 30 somethings have this cant lose mentality. Its freaking crazy. With home/condo inventory at a record high and interest rates rising the only pressure in on prices to drop. One may say, “It’s long term.”



[/quote]

“Can’t lose” is probably a safe assertion to make if:

1.) You have a high quality property.
2.) Your time frame is sufficiently long.
3.) You are not overleveraged, such that you can safely afford to cover the carrying costs even through the worst of times.

You just have to be willing to ride out the dips and hang on for the better days…hence numbers 2 and 3.

Interesting thing is…you could make the above statement about a basket of 10 randomly selected quality growth stocks in 1999(near the market peak) as credibly as you could about a piece of real estate.

Food for thought.

Except that you couldn’t have put 10,000 down for a $200,000 basket of stocks.

And you wouldn’t have received fantastic tax deductions for owning those stocks.

[quote=ManDate]And you wouldn’t have received fantastic tax deductions for owning those stocks.[/quote]

Depends upon whether or not you took tax losses!

Seriously, though, you also couldn’t sell “part” of that house if you needed a new car, pay an unexpected bill, and so forth.

You also can’t get an accurate valuation on your real estate investment by picking up the morning paper(i.e. stock quotes) or logging onto the internet.

Your stocks won’t drop in value or become impossible to sell because the neighborhood changes around you.

I’m just saying that RE isn’t a bad investment, it just isn’t “all that and more”…but hey you keep thinking that if you want to.

[quote=joedabrkr] [quote=ManDate]And you wouldn't have received fantastic tax deductions for owning those stocks.[/quote]

Depends upon whether or not you took tax losses!

Seriously, though, you also couldn't sell "part" of that house if you needed a new car, pay an unexpected bill, and so forth.

You also can't get an accurate valuation on your real estate investment by picking up the morning paper(i.e. stock quotes) or logging onto the internet.

Your stocks won't drop in value or become impossible to sell because the neighborhood changes around you.

I'm just saying that RE isn't a bad investment, it just isn't "all that and more"....but hey you keep thinking that if you want to.
[/quote]

I'm selling a house in SW FL. We're interviewing realtors now. The market in SW Fl has totally collapsed. This isn't a problem for us, as even the stressed market pricing will give us a tax problem to deal with later. The market condition will extend the time it takes to find a buyer. We didn't buy the place as an investment and it hasn't worked out the way we had envisioned as far as a winter home goes. Since I'm not looking to become a landlord, off it goes.

Two ways of looking at this:

One: RE is great because we are going to make a nice profit.

Two: We got lucky buying property just ahead of a wave. Those who are not so lucky are in some serious hurt if they need to sell right now. No telling how long a recovery will take and it will likely get worse before it gets better.

Security holdings for investors is just another arena in which to invest. The clients we're talking to should have holdings in each. And, as always, nothing beats a foundation of good old tax free bonds. Thought I'd get that in there since we're talking real estate terms.

[quote=BankFC]Except that you couldn’t have put 10,000 down for a $200,000 basket of stocks.[/quote]



Stock Index futures? Options on stock index futures?

If you think you cannot lose money in real estate, consider reading a
history of the savings and loan debacle of the late 80’s.  A big
chunk of the $100 billion taxpayer bailout was “cannot lose real estate
deals” that did not work out.

There are wealthy brokers. I have been around a while over 20 years and I am close to 8 figures, almost there. But in my same branch there are two more heavy hitters that are 5 and 8 years younger than me that clear close to one million bucks a year and are ahead of me in production and AUM… so I am sure they will pass me pretty soon unless they are spending an irrational amount.

Oh and about real estate. Go buy an international real estate fund, you will get 13-15 percent annualized for the next 30 years.

[quote=worth6788]Oh and about real estate. Go buy an international real estate fund, you will get 13-15 percent annualized for the next 30 years.
[/quote]

Why do you say that?