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Establishing a good credit history has never been as important as it is today. It’s not just that you’ll need good credit to get decent rates when you’re ready to buy a home or a car. Your credit history can determine whether you get a good job, a decent apartment or reasonable rates on insurance. One seemingly minor misstep -- a late payment, maxing out your credit cards, applying for too much credit at once -- can haunt you for years.
Check
your credit report
You’ll first want to see what, if anything, lenders are saying about you. That kind of information is contained in your credit report at each of the three major bureaus:
Equifax
,
Experian
and
Trans Union
.
Credit reports are used to create your credit score, the three-digit number lenders typically use to gauge your creditworthiness. Lenders also may look at the report itself, as may the landlords, employers and insurance companies who use credit to evaluate applicants.
Can you have a credit report if you’ve never had credit? Maybe.
Somebody else’s information could be mixed in with your report, either through a credit bureau mistake or because of identity theft; i.e. someone using your personal information to open bogus accounts.
If that’s happened to you, you’ll need to clean up your credit report before trying to apply for new accounts. The Federal Trade Commission has information that can help.
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Joint Tenancy & Tenancy In Common
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All About Joint Tenancy and Tenancy-In-Common
Two persons buy a property contributing their respective shares. In law, they are called
co-owners. Property may be co-owned in two ways – joint tenancy and tenancy in common.
Do not confuse the term "tenancy" with that normally understood as between landlord
and tenant.
The difference is vital and goes to the root of title. In a joint tenancy, persons have collective
ownership to the property – there is one vendor and the purchaser therefore
investigates
only one title. In a tenancy-in-common, there is individual ownership by the distinct owners;
there are several vendors and the purchaser therefore investigates title of all of them to
the property.
TIC/1031 Exchange Investing: A Sophisticated Real Estate Strategy
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TIC (Tenant-in-Common) real estate investments
enable individuals to acquire a fractional interest in large retail, office, multi-family, or industrial properties. It’s an opportunity to own quality real estate, step away from personal day-to-day property management, and still satisfy 1031 tax-deferred Exchange requirements.
Here is a comparative list:
Joint Tenancy
1. There is unity of ownership – collective ownership.
It is vested in a group of persons collectively.
2. A, B, C, and D cannot claim any individual ownership. Each instead says –
I am a member of that exclusive
group which owns 7 Oricon House.
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3. The group can collectively dispose of the joint property. An individual can act on behalf
of the group but there is nothing that any of them can describe as "mine" – it is all "ours".
4.
The central character of joint tenancy is the right of survivorship. Until the group is
reduced to one person, ownership remains in the group. A, B, C or D have no separate
ownership of the property and cannot leave anything in their will. If B dies, the group
shrinks to A, C, and D, but that is all – the ownership is still vested in the group. If D dies,
the group now becomes A and C. When C dies, A is alone, there is no co-ownership,
and A becomes the sole and exclusive owner of the property.
5.
It is possible to convert joint tenancy into a tenancy in common. This is through
the process of severance.
Tenancy-in-Common
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There is individual ownership – the property is owned by several people in such
a way that each has a definite share in it.
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A, B, C, and D have separate shares, say one-fourth, in the property. Each says -
I own one-fourth of 7 Oricon House.
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Each co-owner may deal with her share as she pleases – she may transfer,
divide into smaller shares.
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The central character of tenancy in common is
a separate but unpartitioned
share in the property. B has one-fourth share, but she cannot pinpoint and say
that the living room and the backyard represent her one-fourth share.
B may bequeath her share in a will. If she dies without a will, it passes to
her heirs on intestacy.
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It is possible to partition the unpartitioned share; but then co-ownership ceases.
Always remember this - four unities control joint tenancy – possession,
interest, time and title.
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Accumulate Money - Still Save On Taxes
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| Thanks to the 1997 Tax Relief Act, single homeowners can exclude from capital gains tax up to $250,000 of the profit from selling their principal residence; couples filing jointly can exclude up to $500,000. Exceed those thresholds, and the IRS will tax the excess up to 15 percent. There are a couple of other restrictions. You must have used the property as your primary residence and lived there for an aggregate of at least two of the five years before the sale, and you can only take such exclusions once in any two year period. Under the old law, the gain would have to be rolled into an equal or more expensive property, and that would have only deferred this tax to a later year. Many Baby Boomers are down sizing, selling their primary residence and moving into their rental properties. What many people do not know is that this strategy creates the opportunity to create tax free income, provides shelter, you don’t have to worry about tenants so you eliminate property management and chances of vandalism. If you buy right, it’s risk free. The key, however is buying the right property. After all, part of the plan is that you will eventually live there, at least for two years and quite possibly more. The longer you hold the property, the better your chance for a handsome, tax-free payoff. Buy one rental property every year for 10 years. By that time the oldest will have appreciated 40 percent or more. Then start moving into them in sequence, starting with the oldest or the one that has appreciated the most. Sell each after you have lived there two years, and take the tax free money and run– or reinvest. |
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