What Do I Get When I Buy A House?
Well that’s a pretty loaded question. I think it depends on why you are buying. Lets break it up into pieces.
Are you investing or is this home going to be your primary residence?
If you are looking at purchasing a home for investment purposes, it’s probably a good idea to make sure it has a good return on it. Also… you want to make sure with the rent you are not only able to pay the mortgage (be sure to check if your property taxes are included in your mortgage payments). You will also want to make sure that the amount of rent you charge is comparable to the area and to your mortgage payments. Ideally you would like enough rent to cover the mortgage, property taxes, and maintenance. In the perfect world you would like your tenant to pay enough rent yet the rent be atractive enough to keep them as long term tenants to relieve as many out of pocket expenses for you. Inevitably there will be some sort of repairs or maintenance that will be your responsibility as the owner to remedy some of which you can write off 
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A Prop 60 Case
I have a client who wants to sell his house and buy a duplex and wanted to know if he can benefit from Prop 60. Prop 60 allows one to transfer his current property tax to his new residence. This is a complicated matter and does not have one simple answer. It depends on many factors such as county of property, age of the property owner, market value of the duplex and more specifically the unit he would be occupying. According to County appraiser, my client may transfer his property tax if he is over 55 years of age, and the property he sells is less than or equal to the portion of the duplex he will occupy. Of course these properties have to be primary residence. If the duplex has 2 identical units, then it’s easy, the price of the new primary residence is half of the total appraised value. But, what if the units are different in size and value. It is up to the county Appraiser to individually appraise the units after the transfer of the property. One way to do that is to distribute the total value of the duplex by its square footage. Sometimes, the appraiser may look at the comparable properties in the neighborhood and evaluate the units individually that way. Read more
Sorry, Your House DIDN’T Go Down in Value
I had an interesting experience the other day. A homeowner came into my office and asked if I could help him fill out a “Decline in Value” Reassessment Application Form in order to request a reduction in property taxes based on a decline in property value. I agreed to help him and began to do the necesssary research on prices for homes sold within the last three months of 2009 in order to come up with a market value opinion for January 1, 2010. The result? It turned out that there was no significant decline since the last time the house was reassessed for 2009-2010 taxes, such that there would only be about $100 in yearly tax savings.
So, the bad news – the decrease in property tax will be minimal. But the GREAT news is that Read more
To Mod or Not to Mod?
I just found out that a friend of mine tried to modify her loan early this year. She contacted a law firm in Southern California, paid few thousand dollars and nothing has happened yet. She was told to stop making mortgage payments on her first and second loans. after 10 months in default, she has received a NOD or Notice of Default. She is now scared and worried that she’ll loose her house. She is now very confused and doesn’t know if she should continue with the loan modification process. She is also thinking about borrowing some money from family and paying all her unpaid mortgages, late fees as well as her property tax so that she can reinstate her loans and save her house.
How to Lower Your Property Tax?
This is no April Fool’s Day joke! When home values go south, one positive thing for current homeowners may be the chance to lower their property tax. You might have seen advertisements that offer to lower your property tax for a fee anywhere from $100-$300…don’t be fooled!!!…Did you know that you can lower your property tax for FREE (or just a small amount for filing fee)? And, it’s simple to do!
First, download the property tax appeal application from your county’s tax assessor office (see links below). Print out the form and complete the information about your property. You will be able to find all of the information needed on your property tax bill. Some counties websites allow you to submit the form online. Read more
How to Apply “Free Money” Wisely Toward a Home Purchase?
In my previous blog, “Stimulus Package – What It Means to Bay Area Homebuyers”, some prospective homebuyers and comments have expressed that the $8,000 tax credit in the Stimulus Package is “just not enough” to stimulate them to get off the fence. Understandably, the incentive seems too insignificant when we are talking about an average housing price of $500,000 in the Bay Area.
On the flip side of the coin, $8,000 is unarguably a substantial amount of money – don’t we all wish to have an extra $8,000 in our bank account? Since a tax credit is a dollar for dollar reduction in income taxes (e.g. if you have $8,000 tax credit, you will pay $8,000 less tax that year regardless of your tax bracket), it is essentially like “free money”. Therefore, for someone who intends to purchase a home this year, there could be a number of ways in which this money can be wisely applied toward the purchase. Here are some examples: Read more
Election 2008
Election 2008
Election Day 2008 is just around the corner. Nationally this is a very important election. Locally it is also. Many Bay Area school districts have measures or the ballot for a Parcel Tax. A Parcel Tax is a flat fee for each real estate parcel in the district. Seniors could opt out not to pay. These Parcel taxes generally run $75.00 -$175.00 a year and are usually for a period of time of 5-10 years. Heck it is less than a tank of gas, less than a nice dinner for two, less than my wife spends at the beauty parlor, etc. The problem is these must be passed by 2/3 of the people. Approximately 45% of our property tax presently goes towards schools. As property values fall so does the school’s funding. Read more
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