John T. Reed’s news blog

There has been a settlement in the lawsuit against the National Association of Realtors® and a number of large brokerages. This is being touted as a great change and lower commissions. . I will believe it when I see it. Here is what needs to happen. . A start-up will come into being offering low commissions like a flat rate of $3,000 for all homes regardless of the sale price. And that start-up will succeed and get competitors offering similarly low fees. . Crown Books, which was started by one of my Harvard Business School classmates, is an example. Their...

Here is a question I saw on the REDDIT real estate investment group. . “Do you think the like-kind exchange will survive, or is its downfall inevitable?” . Tax-free exchanges are authorized by 26 USC §1031, also known as §1031 of the Internal Revenue Code. Roughly, it says if you trade a business or investment real property for another business or investment real property, you are not required to pay the capital gains tax on the property you are getting rid of. Most such transactions are three-way trades, not two-way. One way is Joe wants my rental house. I want...

https://www.newsmax.com/.../2024/03/13/id/1157085/. Seriously? . The words “Duty Honor Country” were on the cover of Time once. Why? it was the caption on a photo of Oliver North admitting he lied in the Iran-Contra hearings. Those words are the motto of West Point. They are in the West Point crest which was on the front of our hats at West Point. Did Lying Oliver graduate from West Point? Au Contraire. He graduated from the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD the same day I graduated from West Point (6/5/68), although he entered Annapolis two years before me. Slow learner. . The coat...

A REDDIT real estate investing group member from CA posted, “In doing research, I read there is significant tax benefits to owning a out of state rental.” . No federal income tax benefits at all. . If the property is in a lower or zero-tax-rate state, and CA does not tax you on out-of-state profits, that might be a benefit. But it would probably be not worth as much as the incremental cost of owning and managing an out-of-state rental property. . Also, what tax are you talking about? Income tax on the duplex rental income? If you have a...

A Reddit reader is trying to do what is called BRRRR (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat). That “strategy” is idiotic, but that is another topic. The would-be BRRRRer complains: . “The problem is, we have talked to many different lenders and have not found what we wanted. Listening to all of these influencer/investors on social media they all say “You can do this with $0 of your own money” referring to hard money loans. “Every hard money lender we’ve talked to is either asking for a huge down payment or seems very sketchy with little to no reviews.” . The...