Archive for May, 2011

Benefits of Installment Sales Method

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

The most common instances of installment sales can be seen where large sums of money are involved. Real estate deals generally follow the installment sales method as it happens to be a win-win deal for both parties involved in this transaction. The buyer gets the keys to the property and has his expenditure broken up into easy annual installments, while the seller gets his total tax liability deferred to the number of years over which the sale is carried out. Read on for more on home buying.

There is one basic requirement for a sale to qualify under the installment sales method. Basically, for a sale to be an installment sale, it needs to have at least one installment to be paid in the next tax year. So if you have an agreement where your buyer pays a fixed installment each year for say, the next 5 years, only then does it count as an installment sale. The installment sales method cannot be applied if all the installments are paid within a year.

The installment sales method starts with the agreement of sale. First, the seller and buyer agree to transfer the property and that the seller will be compensated in equal installments. Of course, for the seller’s magnanimity of letting the buyer pay in installments, he will also charge an interest to the total amount payable. With that deal done, the buyer will possess the property and continue to make the yearly payments to the seller.

In the sellers books of accounting, instead of recording the complete sale, he will account for each individual installment. Thus, the amount received as income as can be seen in his books is a lot lesser than it would be, had he recorded the entire sale amount. Hence since his income is lesser, so is his tax liability. In this way, the seller by using the installment sales method, ensures that he doesn’t have to pay tax for the money he hasn’t yet received. Read on for more on real estate investment.

Benefits of Installment Sales Method (more…)

Analysis of Rental Property Management Fees

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

There are hundreds of things that need to be handled, when it comes to managing a rental property. You could either hire a company to manage the affairs of your property, or opt for a rental property management software that makes your job easier. While a professionally managed firm’s services will cost you more, a property management software will cost a lot lesser. Check out the rental property management software reviews, before you make up your mind. Let us now proceed further and see what are the factors that decide rental property management fees.

Analysis of Rental Property Management Fees

While hiring a personal property manager may seem like a more convenient solution, professional firms are in a better position to do the job for you. They handle everything from advertising for your property, finding tenants, signing lease agreements, handling rental accounts, maintenance jobs to creation of lease renewal agreements. Firms may offer to do some or all of these jobs for you. Depending on the number of property affairs that they handle, the fees charged will be higher. Here is an analysis of the rental property management fees that you can expect to be charged with.

Commission Earnings
One of the sizable parts of rental property management fees is the money you pay the firm as commission. These fees are generally charged as a percentage of rent collected from your property. It may vary widely from as low as 3% to more than 15%. Some property management firms will ask for a fixed amount of commission, irrespective of the rent earnings. This fee will depend on the size of rental property being managed and may be anything upwards of $200 a month.

Advertising Cost
To find tenants for your rental property, the firm will incur some additional cost, that will be added to the property management fees that you pay. This advertising cost will depend on the kind of media used for the purpose.

Lease Agreement Related Fees (more…)

Vacation House or Timeshare Property

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

When you reach a point in your life wherein you want to reward yourself from working for a long time, a good idea is to make a worthwhile investment. There are a lot of things which you can find worthy invest for. Some of these suggestions are getting a vacation house, or acquire a time-share property. For people who are still innocent about these things, they will probably hesitate to do this since they do not have enough knowledge about these types of real estate properties.

As you read through the remaining paragraphs of this article, you will know what time share and vacant house are and their pros and cons in the event you might consider them for your investment plans.

When you talk of time share properties you would have to consider the location as well the specific time period of the year where you are allowed to use it for your vacation. This is another term for scheduled occupancy. You can not just go there and spend your holidays anytime you want. You need to follow a schedule since you are actually sharing the establishment together with other time share owners.

On the other hand, if you prefer to buy regular vacation home, you will have all the time of your life to make use of it. Whenever you feel like going away from your usual environment, you can just go immediately to your vacation house and stay there for as long as you want. No need to arrange for the schedule.

Though time share occupancy would require specific period of time in the year, these properties are sold fully furnished. This means you no longer have to think of how you want the place would look like. Arrange decorations and look for furniture that you want. Everything is readily made available to the occupant so no more hassles.

But for regular vacation house, only some of them are sold fully furnished. In fact some of them when sold, owner claims that it is fully furnished but when you get to see inside there are still some appliances which are not available. You still have to provide and make it complete. The worse thing would be you have to set aside your budget since this will not be included in your preliminary budget for the house. This can sometimes be the cause of miscalculation of budget. (more…)


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