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Selling a house can yield some unexpected tax benefits. Few of us buy or sell often enough to stay abreast of the latest turns of the tax screw, so here’s an update on a few policies that could ease the pain:
Category: Buying & Selling Homes
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- Tax Tips for Home Sellers
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- Taylor Swift Sells Her Cape Cod Abode
Taylor Swift sold her Hyannis Port, MA, Cape Cod-style home for $5.6 million. Photo: Splash News
What do Bob Vila and Taylor Swift have in common, you ask? Apparently, a love for Cape Cod-style architecture! Taylor recently sold her large estate in Hyannis Port, MA, after owning it for less than a year. And while she never actually lived there, Swift did complete enough well-aimed renovations to earn a cool $1 million from the sale.
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- Is Housing Really Back?
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Hyperventilation over the housing market recovery is reaching gale force. National news outlets are quoting some experts as saying that housing will lead economic growth this year.
Pass the paper bags. The truth is that a consistent rise in home values in 2012—of 5.9% according to Zillow, and 5.5% according to the Case-Shiller Index—falls far short of recapturing a 30% drop in values since 2006.
This year, several factors will keep home values in check:
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- 5 Market Trends to Cash In On This Year
The unexpected has become the norm for the US real estate market. As evidenced by the annual Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, recently released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), market trends are shifting both quickly and often. Whatever was happening in your local market last spring isn’t likely to be happening now.
Here’s a rundown of the top trends outlined in the NAR report and how you can make the most of them:
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- A Little Income Adds a Lot of Value
If you’ve inherited or converted even a small slice of space to a standalone living unit that could be rented, you’ve substantially boosted the value of the whole property.
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- Will 2013 Values Support Improvements?
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2013 is likely to see home values stabilizing—but not because of sale prices. A strengthening labor market is the rising tide that will lift property values, says Abbe Will, research analyst with the Harvard Joint Center on Housing.
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- 3 Top Ways to Capture Value in 2013
While analysts argue whether 2012 was in fact the turnaround year for home sales, it’s clear that home remodeling is gaining traction.
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The Harvard Joint Center on Housing’s Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity projects steadily rising home maintenance and improvement spending in 2013. Here’s how to concentrate your money and effort on the projects most likely to deliver a quick return:
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- Two Regulatory Trends That Could Trim Your Cash Flow
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That sacred cow, the home mortgage deduction, is likely headed for the slaughterhouse. As Congress explores ways to raise revenue, analysts agree that the deduction is likely to be trimmed.
If so, property values could erode as much as 15%, warns the National Association of Realtors (though others believe the effect could be muted).
Get ahead before a reduced deduction becomes a reality by refinancing now, especially if you want to extract equity to finance improvements. Appraisers will have to take into consideration the ripple effect of any change in the deduction on home values, and that could undermine your future ability to get the financing package you need.
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- Bob Vila Radio: Pocket Neighborhoods
Savvy homebuyers these days know that a home is worth more based on its location than on its square footage.
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Listen to BOB VILA ON POCKET NEIGHBORHOODS, or read the text below:
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- Home Buyers Seek Low Carrying Costs
Price is the number one factor for home buyers, according to the annual Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers recently released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
No surprise there—except total purchase price isn’t the overriding factor; more important to buyers is how that price breaks down into monthly carrying costs.
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