All Forum Posts by: Ashan D

Las Vegas is looking highly desirable for a move after i graduate next year with the huge hit to its housing market (and its local economy doesn't affect me because I work online)

The drastic decline was caused from the city's dependence on the entertainment industry, that much I know. However my thinking is that maybe this makes investment here a bad choice because Vegas may be prone to a corrective cycle with every little bump in the road. Maybe it's worth the premium to stay and invest in Los Angeles, where my investments are more stable because the economy is more stable.

What are your thoughts about this?

Thanks

I am actually hoping to move to Austin after graduating next year. Austin has held up very well though, so I've thought that maybe Las Vegas would make more sense since they've been hard from the downturn. Austin is more desirable for everything besides RE so I may just go there anyways, not sure yet.

just from a discussion on the city-data.com texas forum. The poster also mentioned that the economy boom and bust cycle is related to the oil industry, which isn't faring too well right now.

I also found this:

http://www.dallasfed.org/research/swe/2002/swe0206c.html

I am most interested in investing in the Texas market but the major metro areas I'm looking at haven't fallen in value like other parts of the country have. Do you guys think a correction is due? I have heard that texas was undervalued and is now only at a reasonable level, but I've also heard that Texas can not support its current prices and is a "boom and bust" state that was at the tail end of the boom and may starts its correction much later as well.

Scott Scheel mentions that for bigger properties it is tough to get a good deal in markets that are already showing good indications of future growth (either already in the process of growing, or showing the "obvious" increases in population/job growth) He says the best deals are frequently found in weak or even declining markets where you have much better leverage with sellers.

This is a risky proposition because real estate trends seem to last quite a while, but if timed correctly an investor can do much better than average by getting in early before the rest of the herd does.

Do you guys have any ideas of how to anticipate a potential turnaround area before the census data refects it (IMO this data is a beacon to RE investors) I have a couple ideas I think may be worth looking into:

-Projected inflow of large, new employer
-New transportation artery
-Unaccounted change (in census data) of demographics (undesirables moving out, nicer crowd moving in)
-Perhaps a well structured conversation with someone at the economic planning department to find out how close to fruition some upcoming changes are taking place.

Suppose you have a home that is undervalued at the tax assessor's office. A refinance is taken out on the house which shows the new updated appraised value. Can this trigger a higher tax assessed value? I would think tax assessors would be watching for these things.

Can you really ask contractors what they charge per square? I thought every job was too different to give an estiamte like that (ie tiling a small kitchen vs a wide open area may have vastly different charges per tile)

To be fair to John I was also not particularly fond of him after reading his website. But I ordered his "Aggressive tax avoidance" book based on a recommendation... it is in the top 3 real estate books I've owned. Reed's advice is top notch and timeless. Though the focus is taxes it goes beyond that and goes into depth about the issues involved with CPAs and other real estate professionals in general, and how to deal with them most intelligently. I would recommend that book to everyone.

The only part of the book that I questioned was his preference for sole proprietorships which stuck out like a sore thumb in the book. I looked back over it and the wording caused it to make sense... he said that for MOST investors a sole proprietorship with an umbrella policy is probably best. I imagine he's talking about part timers who wouldn't benefit from the extra complexity of business entities.

Hi,

I was under the belief that LLCs or S corps were good entities for a real estate business because it separated business activities away from the individual. So effectively, once I could start signing non-recourse loans, I would not be personally liable for a property.

However Reed says that this is generally not true and argues that LLCs generally do not protect you:

Has anyone ever encountered this? I thought "non-recourse" was pretty strightforward, maybe not?

Hi all,

A big advantage of real estate is that it can be a large tax writeoff. The "depreciation" and mortgage interest writeoffs can save quite a bit.

If I invest in say mexican or canadian real estate will I lose those nice tax writeoffs that I know US real estate has, or does it apply to real estate in any country?

Thanks