Blogs

I have been blogging about investing in general and real estate investing in particular for a number of years now. I have tried various ways and environments and the current one has been pretty good over-all. But, recently there have been a number of missteps and blunders and customer no-service has not been much help.

Therefore, as quick and I can, I will move my blog again. The one major question is how much of the historical data do I take with me?

Staty tuned!

I wonder how many people actually understand what this holiday represents. I also wonder how many really comprehend what is being celebrated.

See, I don't think that most people in this country really love freedom. But, that is not surprising because in 1776, less than 20% of the population were in favor or breaking ties with Great Britain and starting this experiment called The United States.

My family and I will celebrate this holiday and part of that celebration will be a discussion of why the Declaration of Independence was penned and what was so profoundly unique about it.

Today is Memorial Day. The day when we honor everyone who died in any of the battles fought for this country. A day when we should honor their service by embracing the ideals of freedom and fairness that they gave their lives for.

Here is a little trivia for you. This holiday started during the Civil War. No one is exactly sure where or when but in the South, Decoration Day, was a day to honor those brave Sons of the Confederacy that fell in battle.

Yesterday, CNN Money published an article that on the surface would make one wonder why anyone would invest in real estate. But once you dig deeper into the article, you can see that they confuse speculation with investing.

That isn't surprising since they do the same with stocks, bonds and every other type of investing.

The difference between a speculator and an investor is the use of fundamentals.

Skype has announced that SkypeOut for calls within the US and Canada will be free for the rest of 2006. SkypeOut allows you to call any landline or cell phone. This is an interesting experiment they are conducting because if they start charging for it again after the first of the year it will be interesting to see how they retain the flood of subscribers they expect.

Voice over IP is coming of age. I use Vonage at home for a variety of cost and privacy reasons.

After the stock market plunge in 2000 the federal reserve embarked on a series of interest rate drops that pushed mortgage rates down to historically low levels. That fueled a boom in real estate that we are dealing with today. Whether the bubble bursts, slowly deflates or pulsates until the fundamentals are back in line with reality is yet to be seen but it will correct.

A truism of real estate is that it is all local.

Today is tax day. You have to file your personal and partnership tax returns by midnight tonight or file an extension and pay any taxes due.

It is time to work to make this just another day.

Today you must file form 1120 or 1120S for any corporate entities you control. You may have additional filing requirements with your state.

You can file form 7004 to request an automatic extension of six months to file your corporate return.

Filing that extension has an added benefit because if you file form 4868 in April to request an automatic four month extension of your personal return you can then file form 2688 in August to request an additional two month extension.

Trouble ahead for over extended borrowers.
According to RealEstateJournal.com almost one quarter of all mortgagees can expect their monthly mortgage payments to increase between 10% and 50% in the near future. The last few years have seen many homeowners rely on “ultra exotic” mortgage products to buy or refinanced their homes.

There is little doubt that the real estate market is definitely cooling. Not every locale will experience a decline but those areas that had extreme jumps in appreciation can expect either declines or a very long period of little or no appreciation. The appreciation curve will correct to historical levels, just like the stock market did in 2000, the only real question is how will it correct and how severe will the correction be?

If you are faced with selling real estate in this, or really any market, how do you maximize your profit curve?