This Real Estate Investment page is about Real Estate Investment advice from Donald Trump
by Tina Merritt
A tax deduction often overlooked by investors is the cost of travelling to their own properties as well as the cost of travel when looking for new properties.
Travel expenses connected with the management of your real estate investments are deductible if they are ordinary and necessary.
A few rules regarding the deduction of travel expenses:
1. At least 50% of the time you spent away on travel must have been spent doing business related to your real estate investment business. The primary reason for travel must be business as well.
2. Taking a week long vacation to Hawaii and attending an open house while there doesn't count.
3. Expenses that are commonly deductible include: travel, lodging and meals.
4. You can get creative...while the costs of bringing your family with you may not be deductible, if you hire those family members to do landscaping work or other maintenance activities, then you may have another deduction.
5. Everyone's situation is different and you should always consult with a professional accountant for tax advice.
Tina Merritt is an 11 year veteran Real Estate Agent and Trainer based out of Virginia Beach, Virginia. She holds a degree in economics from Virginia Tech and post-baccalaureate from Virginia Commonwealth in real estate and land development. As an avid social networker and internet marketer, Tina helps real estate agents, loan officers and affiliated industries embrace technology. As a real estate agent, Tina primarily deals with marketing and selling properties deemed "hard to sell" and also works with real estate investors helping them build and/or liquidate their portfolios for maximum profit.
A few years ago, a client of mine was relocating overseas. When I asked about what his plans were for his rental property, he said, "Oh, I'm not worried about it. The tenants are on a multi-year lease and the HOA will keep them in check".
Well, that is not the case. In most states, the HOA has no governing authority at all over tenants; only over members.
Yes, it is the landlord's responsibility to enforce the rules and regulations of the HOA. If there is a fine or penalty for the tenant breaking a rule, the fine is levied against the landlord. It is up to the landlord to get reimbursement from the tenant for the fine.
To help avoid problems, landlords should always give tenants a copy of the HOA rules and regulations and have them sign a document stating they have read and agree to abide by the guidelines of the HOA. Landlord's should also give tenant contact information to the HOA to be used in the case of an emergency. It is inherently problematic to have a landlord as a middleman between the HOA and tenant. Even worse is a rental property manager added in the middle as well. If you are a "hands-off" landlord, you may want to re-think your position when dealing with a HOA. Let's look at an example:
Landlord owns a property occupied by tenants and handled by a property manager. Tenants go out of town and have a friend house-sit for the weekend. Friend decides to take a swim in the community pool and when finished, leaves a towel hung over the balcony railing of the home. The hanging towel is a violation of the HOA rules and a neighbor calls the HOA, who calls the owner, who calls the property manager, who calls the tenants, who call their house-sitter. Doesn't seem very efficient and appears to be an easy way to upset the neighbors. How about just speaking directly with the adjoining property owners, explain that you are a landlord who cares about the community and your property, give the neighbors your number and ask them to call you personally if there is ever an issue?
Last week, the Department of HUD and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission released a statement offering guidance on identifying problem drywall in homes. Drywall from China has been found to cause corrosion and air quality issues in homes where it was installed.
The guidance consists of 2 steps for identifying if there is a problem:
1. A visual inspection showing blackening of the copper electrical wiring and/or air conditioning evaporator coils.
2. The drywall was installed between 2001 and 2008.
If both of the above conditions are positive, then there are additional tests to determine the presence of problem drywall.
3. Chemical analysis of the drywall
4. Elemental markers in the drywall
5. Markings on the drywall (such as "Made in China" stamped on the back)
6. Specific chemical emissions from the drywall
Homes with drywall installed between 2005 and 2008 must have 2 of the above additional tests performed. Homes with drywall installed between 2001 and 2004 must perform all 4 tests. Performing these tests may require professional assistance and analysis.
More information can be found at HUD's website or by calling 800-638-2772. Homeowners who have defective drywall and are experiencing problems may be eligible for financial assistance to help them rehabilitate their property.
If you have drywall which was installed in 2009, I recommend you check that as well. Just because they stopped importing the drywall doesn't necessarily mean it was removed from inventory in stores and warehouses.
by Richard Johnson
Donald Trump recently stated with a laugh at a speech to his membership at Trump National Golf Club in Westchester "with the coldest winter ever recorded, with snow setting record levels from Virginia all the way up and down the coast, the Nobel Committee should take the Nobel Prize back from Al Gore."
As Mr. Trump explained, "Gore wants us to clean up our factories and plants in order to protect us from global warming when China and other countries couldn't care less. It would make us totally non-competitive in the manufacturing world and China, Japan, and India are laughing at America's stupidity while they go along with the good act of pretending they're all for spending dollars on global warming." The entire room of 500 people stood up and cheered.
Richard Johnson is a celebrity columnist for the New York Post.
by Koz Khosravani
The Internet is a popular source of information and resources that can be very useful for various purposes. There are many people these days who are already taking advantage of the internet, may it be for personal, academic, networking or business goals.
As a business owner, you must not disregard the power of many online schemes. You never know, but most of the people in your target market group are already spending long hours online. If you still haven't started, you better act fast to know more about the vital steps towards a successful internet marketing launch. You still have a long way to go before you can master the craft, but as soon as you start taking interest in the things that matter, you will reach your goals in due time.
There are a multitude of definitions and terms that you have to start familiarizing yourself with before you begin. One such term in internet marketing is known as social bookmarking. To help you get a better grip on the concept, here are the essential things that you have to know about it:
The Benefits of Social Bookmarking
This may sound harder than other online tools like social networking, but once you have learned how to work things out, you will realize that the steps are actually simple and easy to understand. The term refers to the kind of method that is utilized by online users to be able to organize, manage, share and search the lists on their bookmarks (which are composed of useful online links). The bookmarks serve as reference to people who may need the information that these contain.
To make sure that it will be easier for users to gauge if the links will be useful to their search, metadata that contain brief descriptions of what the links are all about are added. Aside from detailing what the user can expect once they have clicked the link, it will also be easier for them to decide whether they will do it because they no longer need to download anything, which many users find threatening and waste of time. The descriptions vary from text comments or favorable and unfavorable votes regarding the quality of the content. Another popular tool that is implemented on this section is known as folksonomy or social tagging.
Social tagging is done by users through adding metadata or keywords to the shared content. This is better than when you opt to use the more common automated resource location like search engine spiders. For one, the tags are created by humans who know what people are searching and want to find out about. They also know the heart of the sites and how these sites can be useful to internet users. These people also have the ability to find out if the web pages that are included in the bookmarks are not yet indexed by web spiders. Through constant checking and making sure that the links are worthy to be included on most users’ bookmarks, the medium can help in boosting the popularity of these sites.
The tool is indeed very useful because through it, an average user can get access to a consolidated set of bookmarks. The set may include the bookmarks, which were set on different computers. This is also essential on libraries because they can easily give out lists of links that are instructive and essential to those who are asking for help.
How to Utilize the Medium for Business Marketing
Big and small business owners alike can benefit from this tool if they use it to promote their website and products and services as well as to get free PR. Here’s a brief rundown on how to go about the process.
Once you have completed these steps, you are ready to start networking by looking at other users and communicating with them through forums and comments. This is essential for you to be able to promote your own URLs, which can be the foundation of more traffic to your sites and more success to your online business.