All Forum Posts by: Mike Andrews

Joe,
I can understand being hesitant, but I think 1031s are an AMAZING opportunity. I just finished writing a chapter about them for my upcoming book, so I'm particularly excited about them right now (don't worry, I won't link to the amazon page or name drop the title here).

As of 2005, more than $200 billion of real assets changed hands through the 1031 exchange, and millions of investors have benefited. If you're making money on your sale in this market and you have the chance to put that toward another property, why wouldn't you? This is especially true if you're selling expensive properties (500K +).

As long as you find a solid QI company, you shouldn't have to pay anything if you decide to not use the 1031, so why not file? Also, I think having that added bonus to purchase a new house soon can sometimes give people the kick they need to get out there and do it.

You should also be aware that there are five different types of 1031 exchange, so if the standard 45-day ID and 180-day purchase don't work for you, check out the other options.

Wow, it's good to see we have so many young bucks on BP. When I was 25 I wasn't even thinking about investing in real estate. I'm glad there's a site like this where we've got so many people who are ahead of the game.

Social networking is also great for this. If you live in a large metropolitan area, you can use Twitter to find RE agents near you and message them to ask questions. Just do an advanced search for real estate in your city. The nice ones will also help point you in the direction of useful resources they use.

In addition to what these guys have said, it could also be vandalism. If someone gets foreclosed on and they're not happy about it they may take things like the toilet and appliances to spite the bank. Check the house's wiring to see if that's still in tact. Also like Joel Owens said, toilets can fetch a pretty penny on eBay.

Luiz,
The answer depends on what your intention is with the house. If you intend to live in it and keep it for years and years and years, having that extra space will definitely increase your comfort and happiness and your wife's happiness (which is what's really important LOL). If you're planning on using this house as an investment and selling it soon, you are working against yourself. As silly as it may be a 4/2 house can fetch more value than a 3/2 even if that master bedroom is really nice. So you're spending extra money to reduce the eventual value of your house. You also reduce your opportunities to rent the house out by knocking out that wall. You could be reducing your monthly income by hundreds of dollars a month, because you can only rent to three people instead of four. Keep that in mind.

Corey hit the nail on the head. Banks have been holding onto foreclosed properties for months, some of them up to years, because there wasn't a market for them or because they were involved in lawsuits. Banks have also been holding off on foreclosures because of these lawsuits, leaving homeowners that would normally have been foreclosed upon in their homes. If those lawsuits shake out for the banks, we could be seeing another big round of foreclosures hit the market this year.

I work in the LA area and host a radio show out there and many homeowners are telling me that they aren't even making mortgage payments because of the suits their lender is embroiled in right now. My advice for anyone who can profit from this short-term supply/demand turnaround would be to take advantage while you can.

My guess is that when these lawsuits do end up getting settled the government will put some kind of restrictions on how many foreclosures can hit the market at once. A flood of properties could do real damage to the recovering real estate market. Bernanke was actually just talking about that at a panel this week.

Brittany Davis, Welcome to BP. I'm pretty new here and have found the site to be very useful. I'm also in Southern California. I do most of my work in LA and Torrance. Very cool to have someone else from the Southland here.

Lynn Harrison, what part of California are they offering properties for 70? I'm near LA and I haven't seen anything South of 100 in years.

Wish I'd caught this on April 1. Now I'm days behind.

Student loan debt has now topped $1 trillion?! That's crazy. The craziest part is that unlike a home or a car, someone can't just come and repo your education. I can't imagine this becoming the next real estate bubble because the only people invested are the borrowers themselves and the government, but wow.