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Senior Planning with

Dwight Puntigan


 

Your Real Estate Choices Today Will Matter Later

Posted: 10 Feb 2012 06:37 AM PST

Decades from now when you retire, you are going to take a look at your income and assets to see if you will be living a comfortable retirement. One big portion of your retirement picture will probably relate to real estate. You may have paid off a home, and/or rental properties; and that would be great! Or you may still be paying a fairly large amount on your home mortgage or paying rent each month to a landlord.

Obviously, the scenario where you are still paying monthly for your housing is not an optimal scenario. Luckily, you can do a lot to increase the chances that the real estate you own will have been a net wealth builder over your lifetime. You do this by educating yourself and reducing the risk on real estate you buy and own. It is the real estate choices you make decades before you retire that will probably will be the difference between a comfortable retirement or living on social security to social security check (Note: We all know that Social Security may not be around a few decades from now).

Of course, saving and investing money in mutual funds, stocks, bonds, etc. is also vital to your retirement picture; but your financial adviser can assist you with those issues. In this article, we are just concentrating on real estate.

Making smart choices on real estate during your lifetime, which really effectively means not losing money on high risk real estate and avoiding money-draining real estate choices, will be a big help towards a relaxing retirement future.

The first issue that you should consider in making good retirement choices can be summed up here in determining whether or not your investment is an asset (buy those) or liability (skip those!!!):

Personal Residences:

  • Asset = You can comfortably afford the payments, it is not significantly less expensive to rent instead of owning, you bought a modest home for your wealth level, and you plan to own it a long, long time.
  • Liability = You are financially stretching to make the monthly payments.

Investment Rental Property:

  • Asset = You are positive on net cash flows and are earning a fair rate of return on your invested equity capital; for the corresponding risk you are taking for the type of property you are buying, and you plan to own it a long, long time.
  • Liability = You are negative on cash flows or you try to quickly buy and resell real estate at a profit.

If the real estate you buy is an asset, it is more likely to add to your net wealth and help your finances at retirement. Buying liabilities will probably not help your retirement.

You also need to consider if your real estate purchase is a safe and sound purchase, because the lower risk choices you make, the more likely it will add wealth to your retirement. And the actions you take when buying and owning property will determine whether or not you made safe choices. For example:

  • Did you buy properties that were generally in good shape and not fixer-uppers? Fixer uppers generally drain a buyer of cash (that could be invested elsewhere) and probably will not add wealth to your retirement for a number of reasons.
  • Did you avoid investing money in any real estate deal that seemed too good to be true? You may miss out on some opportunities in taking this strategy, but real estate is very high risk and many people lose money on real estate by putting their equity cash into something that sounds too good to be true. If it sounds too good to be true in real estate, it almost ALWAYS is too good to be true.
  • Did you review the financial, operational and legal condition of any homeowners association if you are buying into that community? A community in poor shape usually means you will pay the price over time with higher fees or special assessments.
  • Did you get a fair deal on your mortgage financing by getting a couple of bids for your business and did you take out long-term fixed rate financing?
  • Are you carrying the proper type and amount of homeowner’s insurance for your property and your risk issues? Do you have an umbrella policy to increase your liability coverage if you have rental properties?
  • Rental properties; Are you working hard to get good tenants and keep them as long as possible by treating them well? That includes buying lower risk decent properties and keeping them in good shape.
  • When you are buying properties, did you adequately review the title abstract and title insurance policy, plus get a survey or at least review the plat and walk the property to see if anything appears strange?

There are many other tasks you can do to reduce your risk, help make the real estate you buy an asset instead of a liability, and hence add net wealth to your retirement. But it all starts with avoiding bad, high-risk real estate, which are money draining mistakes.

Educating yourself on how to avoid those wealth-destroying decisions will hopefully turbo-charge your retirement. The end result, decades down the road, may be the difference that gives you that comfortable retirement lifestyle.

Leonard Baron, MBA, CPA, is a San Diego State University Lecturer, a Zillow Blogger, the author of several books including “Real Estate Ownership, Investment and Due Diligence 101 – A Smarter Way to Buy Real Estate”, and loves kicking the tires of a good piece of dirt! See more at ProfessorBaron.com.

Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or position of Zillow.

1031 Exchange

I NEED clients, and the professionals that work with them.  Accountants, lawyers, insurance agents, and financial planners are the people that tell us what we need to know. 

There are several ways that investment property should make money for you every year.  Cash flow, appreciation, and depreciation allow you to add to your net worth every year.  Cash flow should pay all expenses and overhead plus give you a 5% or more return on your investment every year.  Rent obsolescence is when you can no longer raise the rents to keep up with increasing costs of insurance, property taxes, etc.  Appreciation should mean that the property is worth more every year.  When appreciation is less than the rate of inflation you actually have less net worth.  Depreciation allows a tax deduction that lowers your taxes every year till the property is fully depreciated.  After about ten years you will be getting about 50% less of a tax benefit than if the tax basis of the property were current. 

 

The professionals like your accountant will recognize the propensity for these events to occur.  I can recommend a professional to review your situation if needed.  Refinancing might allow you to update the tax basis of the property.  The IRS Rule 1031 would allow you to defer capital gains, vacate a neighborhood in atrophy, reinvest in an area on the rise, and increase the depreciation deduction.

 Daily Real Estate News     October 20, 2006TICs: Buying a Small Part of Something Big
Tenant-in-common (TIC) programs provide a way to keep money invested in real estate without the stresses of being a landlord.

Billions of dollars have been invested in TICs since 2002, when the IRS cleared up the status of Section 1031 exchanges, which allow investors 45 days to choose a new property to invest the revenue from the sale of another property in order to avoid capital gains tax.

Each property can have up to 35 investors, most of whom would not be able to own a building of this magnitude otherwise. Omni Brokerage says $7.2 billion worth of TIC properties were sold to investors by sponsors last year, which is greater than the total value ($7 billion) sold between 2001 and 2004.

The amount sold already this year ($7.7 billion) has passed the 2005 total, thanks to a good deal of investments being made independent of 1031 exchanges.

Often, TICs are sold as securities, and are required to include a private placement disclosure about the property, such as what the sponsor paid for it, the sponsor's share of profits, how much selling commissions are, and any potential risks involved.

However, those sold as private real estate transactions are not subject to SEC regulations, and often include disclaimers protecting brokers from any liability.

TICs are a better fit for some investors than for others. Those who feel the need for hands-on control should look elsewhere, according to Gary Gorman, a managing partner with 1031 Exchange Experts, an intermediary for 1031 exchanges.

Source: New York Times, Vivian Marino (10/17/06)

© Copyright 2006
Information Inc.

 

 

 

 

Dwight Puntigan - Principal Realty Group

1014 Country Club Road
St. Charles, Mo  63303
636-219-6242   Direct
866-456-1862   Toll Free
636-412-1530   Fax
http://DwightPuntigan.Point2Agent.com

http://www.StCharlesHousing.com
dpuntiga@charter.net   Email Dwight   


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