Rental Property Articles and Videos - Page 1

Once you sign a lease for an apartment or house rental, you are responsible for fulfilling the terms of your lease. If you want to leave before the lease ends, you will usually have to pay some form of penalty. You are also responsible for any damages, according to the terms of your lease. If you…

Property owners are finding creative ways to fill vacancies during the recession. Over 70 percent of property owners have experienced higher vacancy rates over the past year. Recent vacancies are primarily a result of job loss and tenants trying to save money on rent by moving to a cheaper unit or…

Fannie Mae announced an innovative program designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. Called Deed for Lease, the program allows struggling homeowners who are unable to qualify for a loan modification under the current Obama Loan Modification Plan to hand their keys over to Fannie Mae, but then…

The Fannie Mae Rental Program will allow homeowners to avoid foreclosure for a year.
This rental program or "Deed to Lease" program will allow homeowners who haven't qualified for a home loan modification or for the Making Home Affordable Act to avoid foreclosure for a year. The Fannie Mae Rental…

Today on the Ilyce Glink Show, Ilyce went over the latest economic news, including an Atlanta Flood update, September job cuts and unemployment rate rises. Ilyce took questions from callers, and she weighed the pros and cons of Section 8 housing with an investment property owner who is thinking…

Foreclosure or Short Sale? Which is better for the homeowner and the lender? A homeowner is underwater on her rental property mortgage and wonders if her lender will come after her for the deficiency if she walks away from her rental property mortgage. Lenders are processing so many foreclosures and…

What happens if you can't pay your mortgage? A homeowner worries about getting a deficiency judgment if her rental property falls into foreclosure because she can't pay the mortgage. Some states allow deficiency judgments on primary residences, but many do not. If your house is in foreclosure…

In a new twist on the Nigerian email scam, online rental ads are soliciting potential renters to wire money for several months rent, in exchange for super low rent rates. A scam alert from the FBI warns against the latest Nigerian scam. Online rentals found through sites like Craigslist are…

What are the true costs of owning and maintaining a home. If you're preparing a budget, you need to factor in these cost of ownership. Not only will you have to replace fixtures, appliances, and carpet, but you'll need to change filters, batteries and smoke detectors regularly as well. Landscaping…

I always seem to move at the worst time of the year (like August in South Carolina and January in Chicago) just to get the apartment I want in the off season, but Rent.com reports that some people will do some pretty strange things for a the ideal apartment.

In exchange for the perfect apartment:
…

With the housing crisis and rising foreclosures, there are more renters on the market. Add these new renters to the existing renters, and you may see changes in renters' behavior. According to a study by Rent.com, more renters are trying to find additional roommates and they're looking for the basic…

Today on the Ilyce Glink Show, Ilyce discussed refinancing your mortgage, and how a successful refinancing focuses on the refinancing trifecta: Can you shorten the length of your mortgage term? Can you lower your monthly mortgage payment? Can you lower your mortgage interest rate? Ilyce also…

When you own a home you can deduct property taxes and your mortgage interest from your federal income taxes. If you're a real estate investor and own multiple properties, you're limited as to the number of properties that you can deduct mortgage interest for. But you can continue to deduct property…

When you own a primary residence and turn it into a rental property you will be unable to take the same tax deductions as you would if it were a primary residence. If you later decide to change the property ownership from yourself to an LLC - a limited liability company - that will also affect your…

Renting out part of your primary residence will change how your capital gains tax is calculated when you later sell. If you didn't have a rental property as part of your primary residence, you could save taxes on up to $250,000 of profit from the sale, if you're single. When you have a rental…

Depending on the terms of the lease, it may be possible for a landlord to ask for an additional security deposit on a rented home. If the landlord thinks you are a problem tenant, they might ask for an additional deposit to protect themselves. A long-term lease that includes security deposit terms…

An installment sale means selling the property to a buyer in stages. An installment sale offers seller financing, gives the buyer interest in the house but leaves the title with the seller until the buyer has paid in full.

If you’ve lived in a home for two of the past five years as a primary residence, you may sell and keep up to $250,000 in profits tax free, or up to $500,000 if you’re married. If the property was rented for part of that time and any tax deductions taken, those will need to be recaptured. A tax…

Deciding whether it’s a smarter financial move to rent or to buy often depends on where you’re located and the cost of property in the area. If you’re going to move often, buying a home might not be as lucrative, considering the costs of buying and selling. One good option for buying could be a…

An investor is interested in taking out a home equity loan to buy rental income property and is wondering if the home equity loan interest will be deductible as a business expense. More than likely, the interest on the home equity loan cannot be written off as an expense. But taking out a home…

A homeowner wants to put his investment property into a trust to avoid capital gains taxes. To avoid capital gains taxes, you have to live in the for-sale property for two out of the past five years. A smarter way for this homeowner to avoid capital gains would be to use a 1031 exchange.

Should you as a rental property owner who lives in California keep the building you own on the East Coast or do a 1031 exchange and buy a building in California. Ilyce explains the pitfalls of not being in the same state as the rental property you own, and suggests the 1031 exchange. The 1031…

Is investment property worth short-term hassles for a long-term investment? What obstacles are there in selling investment property? When it is better to rent investment property and when is better to sell? Here are some questions about selling investment property.

If you own several rental properties, should you put them under one corporate umbrella? Ilyce suggests getting a good real estate attorney and figuring out the best way to protect your real estate investment in these rental properties.

When you enter into a lease, you are entering into a contract for the specified term in the document. If the tenant fails to pay rent for the time indicated in the lease, he or she will is still responsible for the rent for the months that the apartment was vacant during that time period. In most…