Oct
12
IRS STEPS UP SCRUTINY
This article appeared on October 11, 2007 in the Wall Street Journal’s “RealEstateJournal.com”. It gives the investor some insight into the IRS practices in scrutinizing 1031 exchanges and their possible renewed effort to pay more attention to whether investors are reporting like kind exchanges correctly. Investors would be wise to consult whatever tax professionals they require to make sure that their exchanges adhere to the rules for like kind properties and also to employ a well qualified intermediary or accomodator to handle the funds and provide advice about the time […]
Oct
8
ALWAYS LOW ENERGY
The following article which appeared in The National Real Estate Investor earlier this year describes the efforts of Wal-Mart to incorporate “greenâ€? technology into its existing and new stores and, even more interestingly, to share its information about “greenâ€? technology with other competing retailers in order to speed its market acceptance. “Greenâ€? buildings are rapidly becoming mainstream with numerous major corporations and real estate companies making major commitments to supporting or utilizing “greenâ€? technology in their buildings. This is a movement which real estate investors need to be aware of […]
Sep
24
WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH NEW HOME BUILDING?
WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH NEW HOME BUILDING? The information today is that new housing starts in the US are down again and look to continue this trend. Actually down by 20 percent from last years numbers. There is just too much inventory for sale now. Add to that slumping sales figures there is not much good news her. So what are these developers doing now? Well, They are moving to multi-family developement. In fact the only good numbers that were posted for new construction were found in Multi-family projects. These […]
Sep
24
REAPING THE REWARDS
The following article appeared in the September 2007 issue of “Retail Traffic”. It discusses the differences between CMBS (Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities) lenders who sell the loans they originate on the secondary market and Portfolio Lenders (lenders who originate loans to be held in their own portfolios). A principal difference between the two has always been that CMBS lenders usually require “yield maintenance” in lieu of fixed prepayment penalties while the Portfolio Lenders typically use fixed prepayment penalties. We usually recommend that investors who may want to sell or refinance […]