We have heard a lot recently about dividend income taxed at a low 15%. Most of us really don't feel as though we can easily grow enough of a stock portfolio that will keep us happy in retirement, send our children to college and leave as a legacy to our children.
Building a property portfolio is another way to do this. And when the stock market goes down, usually the rents go up. When interest rates go up, the rents go up. When the economy is great, we get appreciation even if the rents go down. WE CAN'T LOSE! DO YOU GET IT!
Call us, we'll help to turn you into Real Estate Investors!

The Banks are behaving badly as usual. Most of them don't have anyone that seems to have a clue or cares whether these short sales find a buyer or whether they go into foreclosure or not.
The reality is that when they go into foreclosure there is a lot of time lost, the prices go down and effect the whole neighborhood, and they often resell for a fraction of what they would have sold for as a short sale. This obviously causes other sales in the neighborhood to sell for less because the short sale or foreclosure house sale becomes a comparable sale for appraisal purposes.

It's getting close to that time of year again!  Tax season.  We know everyone dreads it, and for good reason.  It's not like we have a choice of paying taxes, the government just takes them!

Last week Yahoo Finance posted an article from Kiplinger.com outlining the Bush Tax Cuts and what the IRS numbers show, based on 2008 and 2009 tax returns.  The resulting information is very interesting to say the least.