By Victor Hairapetian, Attorney
Question to Victor: A 60 day notice that I served ends on the 15th of the month, I know I am only suppose to receive 15 days, but the tenant paid the whole month, what should I do?
Victor’s Advice: This is an area that most landlords easily confuse.
Taken from Forbes
By J.W. ELPHINSTONE
NEW YORK –
The number of households facing the foreclosure process more than doubled in the second quarter compared to a year ago, according to data released Friday.
Nationwide, 739,714 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice during the quarter, or one in every 171 U.S. households, Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac Inc. said. That’s up 121 percent from the second quarter of 2007.
I have a vacation property at Lake Tahoe that I’ve owned for several years. My kids have grown and aren’t interested in going there for vacation. Also, I’ve been too busy with my business to get up there much over the past few years. So I think that it’s time to sell it, but I have not placed it on the market yet. I think it will sell for about $800,000. My tax basis is $100,000, so I’m looking at about $700,000 of gain, which means approximately $105,000 of federal taxes and another $65,000 of California state taxes. Can I exchange the home under Section 1031 to defer the $170,000 in taxes?
A property must be held “for investment or in a trade or business” to be eligible for gain deferral under Section 1031. “Investment” means primarily for appreciation and not for personal use. Therefore, the Lake Tahoe property will only qualify if you hold it primarily for appreciation.
by Bryan Wittenmyer
Before I explain what I believe are myths about lower-income housing let me first clarify a few important points. First, low-income landlording, or even regular middle-income landlording is not for everyone. I’m not one of these guys who says everyone should be a professional landlord. A good portion of the population just isn’t cut out to be anybody’s landlord, or even in business for that matter. Landlording of any stripe or flavor is not easy. It just isn’t.
Taken from Multi-Family News
By Anuradha Kher, Online News Editor
New York–Amidst headlines of doom and gloom in the economy, the multifamily industry is holding relatively strong. “Vacancy rates in the apartment sector have been stable in the last three quarters and apartment rent growth in the second quarter of 2008 has seen the strongest gain as compared to all other types of commercial real estate,” Dr. Sam Chandan, chief economist and senior vice resident for research at Reis Inc. said today in a virtual conference hosted by Reis.
Owners and Managers Partnering with
Collection Firms to Recover Lost Revenue
Increasing Profitability and Productivity for Owners and Managers
Owners and managers of multifamily housing properties are increasingly partnering with collection firms specialized in the intricacies of the industry to collect lost revenue. The outsourcing of this function to experts in the industry allows owners and managers to focus on their core competencies while also more efficiently retrieving valuable funds.
By Matt Woolsey, taken from Forbes
Rahul Reddy, a dentist from Perth, Australia, has been investing in commercial properties in Western Australia for the last two years. Now, with the Australian dollar growing in strength and the American housing market strained, he’s got his eye on residential and commercial properties in Florida and California, areas he believes will recover over the long term.
He’s not alone. Encouraged by a weak dollar and a belief in the resiliency of the U.S. economy, individuals like Reddy, along with institutional investors such as pension funds and private equity groups, are seeking investment properties and development opportunities in the United States.
Their markets of choice include New York City, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Seattle and San Francisco.
“The U.S. is good for speculative higher-risk investments from our perspective because the strong Australian dollar will enable us to gain hold of properties at prices we will probably not see for a long time,” says Reddy. “The U.S. is an economic powerhouse that I think will recover, and if the exchange rate goes back to figures from a few years ago, that will benefit us.”
Key word there: Risk. With every passing month, a few pieces of conventional wisdom fall by the wayside. The July news that Manhattan sales prices dipped by 3.1%, according to New York appraisal firm Miller Samuel, pierced the logic that Manhattan holds unique status as a bulletproof market.
Still, international cash is flowing to cities from coast-to-coast as international buyers see plenty of opportunities.
By Jordan Smith
Are you tired of waiting for your magazine? Tired of waiting 5 days for the United States Postal Service to reach your front door? Tired of missing an issue because it got delivered to some other place?
Well…all that is a thing of the past. The publishing industry has been revolutionized. Are you ready for a digital magazine that will be sent to you the day it is sent to the printer?
Apartment News Publications Inc. is pleased to announce that Apartment Management Magazines will be releasing an interactive, digital upgrade to our online magazine. Since the launch of our website, www.aptmags.com, we have offered only a PDF format of our online magazine. While it allowed many readers to access it on their computer, we were not happy with it and knew we could offer better to our readers. That is why we are launching our new digital magazine in conjunction with this issue. Everyone in our office is excited at the launch of our digital magazine, and we are eager to experience firsthand the digital future of our magazine, and its impacts upon the apartment industry.
Source: MULTIFAMILY EXECUTIVE MAGAZINE
By Chris Wood
Key players in the multifamily industry offered insight on the industry’s strengths and challenges in the next few years at the Multifamily Trends Conference portion of the Pacific Coast Builders Conference, held in San Francisco this week.
Putting a finger on the industry pulse, conference chairman and Houston-based Camden Property Trust CEO Ric Campo noted that “multifamily is a great place to be” in his opening address. “Underlying fundamentals are good, and as a result of foreclosures on the single-family side, we are seeing an increase in the renter pool from 30.9 [percent] to 32.2 percent. That’s 1.5 million new renters looking for an apartment,” Campo explained.
Among a litany of positive industry fundamentals, Campo did recognize a void in the construction and asset transaction arenas. He also conceded that broader economic issues could impact multifamily operators in the coming 12 to 18 months, particularly among unprepared players. But overall, Campo urged the conference to turn their focus away from the “woe is me” mentality infecting American industry today.
“Some of the forecasting at NMHC indicates that by 2011 we might even be facing rental shortages,” Campo said. “The next several years are going to be a time of great opportunity but in a market in which there is no place to hide. You will take part in the value creation of the industry, or you will get run over by it.”
by Matt Padilla, Register Reporter and Blogger
I quizzed Lee about the mortgage market, his business, and his prediction for a housing rebound. I have a feeling this interview will appeal more to housing bears than bulls.
Q. Foreclosures in Orange County have broken all the records set in the housing slump of the early 1990s. When is this bloodbath going to end?
A. I’m projecting that the market will start stabilizing in four to five years from now – 2012-2013. That’s not to say home prices will be back to their peak, which could take up to eight years. I base this opinion on proprietary information Foreclosure Trackers has at its disposal. Banks turn to Foreclosure Trackers as the first line of defense because we are defaulted mortgage experts and buyers. Banks send their portfolios to us for evaluation every week before anyone else in the nation. Our company is on the “inside track” with the banks and often times receives information first before the “outside” track – such as the government, title companies, investment firms, lawyers, real estate firms, and even competitor foreclosure sites.
Q. With so many foreclosures, how is an investor supposed to make money buying a property in some stage of foreclosure? As the housing bears like to say, isn’t buying a foreclosure now akin to catching a falling knife?
A. Precisely. There are really five main strategies for investing in foreclosures. But four of the five rely on equity, which doesn’t really exist in today’s market. An equity purchase, foreclosure auction, short sale or REO purchase can all be profitable, wise investment strategies – just not in today’s market. There is only one strategy that makes sense in this market and that’s defaulted and performing mortgage (notes) investing.
At Foreclosure Trackers free seminars, we teach investors how to “buy the loan, not the home” and “work out, not kick out” strategies for defaulted mortgages and note investing. As I said, there’s no equity in properties today. By buying the loan at a substantial discount, we create equity and we are able to turn a profit on the property while helping Americans to save their homes.
This is an example of how it works: a bank may hold a note for a defaulted 1st mortgage in the amount of $800,000. The Broker Price Opinion may state the value of the property is $600,000. This property is over-encumbered or upside down. Foreclosure Trackers buys the note for $325,000. We then deploy our “work out, not kick out” strategy of working with the homeowner and reduce the principal balance to $480,000. The homeowner gets a principal reduction of $320,000, and is able to handle their mortgage payments going forward.
We’re doing our best to get the word out so the movement will start to make a real difference, both to those looking to earn great profits and those who want to help save America one home at a time.