Tina To's Real Estate Blog

Tina, although she was a rabel as a teenager, she actually is quite traditional.  She gives me a new angle of looking at parent-children relationship.  I totally agree with her that when our children uplive our hopes and will, we would proudly say, they are my sons/daughters.  But when they walk some weird path (at least from the parent’s point of view), she would call her child – friend.

Do you have a friend or have a son or a daughter?

When Tina’s only daughter told her mother she wanted to change into the male, Tina just asked her daughter to do more researches and discussed with her later.  Tina, is quite traditional in this area.  She considered changing sex was against the nature.  However, she compromised with her daughter’s decision.  And her daughter became her “friend”.

Parents:  Have you ever noticed the way you say “your” or “my” when you addressed your son/daughter with your spouse?  Let me give you an example.  When my son did something wrong, I would subconsciously, told my husband, “go get YOUR son”.  But when my son showed me his report cards with all As, I would say, “come, look at MY son’s results.”

How many of you are like me?  Picture below is My son and Your son.

You cannot control the length of your life, but you can “widen” it.

You cannot control the weather, but you can control how you feel. – Some people feel sad because it rains and they cannot go out.  Some people feel good because it rains and they can enjoy their home more.  Who are you?

You cannot change how you look (to certain extent) but you can always smile.

You cannot change others but you can change yourself.

You cannot predict tomorrow but you can make good use of today.

You cannot win everything but you can always try your very best.

Many consumers may already aware that on top of the “old” homebuyer tax credit, there is the new “$10,000″ award for California homebuyers.  However, I always encountered my clients ask the following questions that  I think you may like to know as well.

1.  MY FRIEND HAS JUST PURCHASED A HOUSE IN CALIFORNIA BUT S/HE CAN ONLY GET $7,000 CREDIT AND NOT $8,000 CREDIT, WHAT COULD BE THE REASON?

Answer:  Your friend must have fulfilled all criterior for the first time homebuyer’s credit such as purchasing his/her first home as principal resident.  However, I bet the house price has not exceed $700,000 because the amount of tax credit is 10% of purchase price not to exceed $8,000 for First-Time Homebuyers or $6,500 for Long-Term Residents.

2.  MY FRIEND IS A FIRST TIME HOMEBUYER BUT IS REJECTED TO RECEIVE ANY FIRST TIME HOMEBUYER TAX CREDIT, WHY?

Answer:  If your friend earns over $145,000 per year as single or $245,000 as joint tax filers, s/he is not entitled to such credits.

3.  I WANTED TO BUY A HOUSE NOW BUT WOULD IT BE BETTER IF I WAIT UNTIL MAY SO THAT I CAN GET THE NEW CALIFORNIA TAX CREDIT?

Answer:  That will be your choice.  If you enter a written binding contract by April 30,2010 and close it before June 30, 2010, you will be able to get 10% of purchase price not to exceed $8,000 as a First Time Homebuyer or $6,500 for Long-Term Residents.  However, if you wait until May 1, 2010 to enter into a written binding contract, you will be eligible to 5% of purchase price, not to exceed $10,000.  You may consider this depend on the purchase price of your property.  Of course, you will have to fullfill all other criteria. 

4.  CAN YOU TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE ‘NEW’ HOMEBUYER TAX CREDIT?

Answer:  The new California law offers up to $10,000 for firsttime homebuyers or buyers of properties that have never been occupied.  Here is the summary:

Amount of Tax Credit:   5% of purchase price, not to exceed $10,000

Date of purchase:  From May 1, 2010 to July 31, 2011, but an enforceale contract must be executed by December 31, 2010.

Principal Residence:  Yes

Type f Property:  Single-family residence

Eligibility:  First-Time Homebuyer.  Up to $10,000 if the buyer (or buyer’s spouse if any) has not owned a principal residence during the three-year period before date of purchase. Or Never-Occupied Property: Up to $10,000 for a principal residence if the property has never been previously occupied as certified by the seller.

Income Restriction:  No

Maximum Purchase Price:  Not applicable

Repayment:  No repayment required if the buyer owns and occupies the property for at least 2 years immediately following the purchase.

Multiple Buyers (not married to each other):  Tax credit must be allocated between eligible taxpayers based on their percentage of ownership.

Maximum Credit for all taxpayers:  $100 million for first-time homebuyers and $100 million for never-occupied properties, both on a first-come first-served basis.  (It means it will fade out if a lot of new homebuyers applied and awarded).

When to Claim:  1/3 of total tax credit may be claimed each year for 3 successive years.

How to File:  Submit application to the FTB to obtain Certificate of Allocation.  The FTB may prescribe additonal rules and procedures to carry out this law.

Other Restrictions:  Cannot be an acquisition from related persons as defined; buyer or spouse must be 18 years old; buyer cannot be another taxpayer’s dependent; credit is allowed for only one qualified principal residence, and credit allowed cannot be a business credit under Cal. Tax & Rev. Code 17039.2

More Information:  FTB web site at http://www.ftb.ca.gov/individuals/New Home Credits.html.

5. WHO MAY BENEFIT THE MOST FROM THIS NEW HOMEBUYER TAX CREDIT?

Answer:  In my opinion, if you are the California taxpayers who earns more than $145,000 per year and is interested to buy a never-occupied single family house in CALIFORNIA, this might be your only chance to earn this NEW credit.

6. I LIKE NEWER HOME BUT WITH THE CURRENT AVAILABLE MARKET PRICE IN THE AREA I LIKE, I CAN ONLY AFFORD TO BUY CONDOMINIUM OR TOWNHOUSE, WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE?

Answer: Well, in that case, you should hurry because under the OLD tax credit regulations, not only Single Family Houses, but condominium, townhouse, manufactured home, apartment cooperative, houseboat, housetrailer, or other type of property located in the U.S. are all included.

7.  I SOLD MY PRINCIPAL RESIDENTS LAST YEAR, CAN I STILL BE ELGIBLE TO GET THE TAX CREDIT IF I BUY NOW?

Answer:  Again, you have to hurry too.  If you have lived in your previous house for 5 years out of the last 8 years, you are classified as Long-Time Resident and can get up to a maximum of $6,500 credit under the OLD homebuyer credit application.

8.  WILL I GET CASH FROM THE TAX CREDIT I APPLIED?

Answer:  YES under the OLD CREDIT.  Any amount of the tax credit not used to reduce the tax owed may be added to the taxpayer’s tax refund check. 

No under the NEW CALIFORNIA CREDIT

Sources:  http://www.car.org/legal/legal-questions-answers/2010

Thank you for your visit and please let me know if you want to receive a summary of the comparison of the old and new homebuyer’s credit.

April 4th is Easter – to celebrate Jesus Chris come back to live.

April 5th is Ching Ming – to memorize the ancestors.

During Ching Ming, usually it is drizzle as if weeping for the loss of our ancestors.  Many cemetaries will hold a free prayer memorization party to their clients as to thank you for their business as well as to promote new business.  Funny thing is they respect different religions so hold different ceremonies.  They also provide free buffet.

Both my parents are buried at Cypress Lawn which is located at Colma City.  Like its name Colma is a place for people to fall in colma and death in some way resemble a never wake up sleep.  As we want to stay close to our parents, my siblings and myself had purchased the designated space around my parents.   Land for the dead is more precious than land for the live (real estate ).    The ”dead spot” , once taken, is rarely or never sold again because “previously occupied” tomb is not allowed to be sold.  For living persons, we are free to move and sell our house but not for the dead.  Also the price of the tomb appreciates way faster than that of live person’s.  For example, my parents’ tomb is $8000 but two years after, I bought the exact size similar location is already $17,000.  For Asian, it is a taboo  not to mention the word “dead” and to curse  another person we will say such a “dead head”.

As a real estate agent, I encountered many times potential buyers/investors like to throw me one looks like simple question or statement: INFORM ME WHEN IT IS A GOOD DEAL.

Wow, that is a big question.  What is a good deal?  I have a client who have rejected my good deal suggestions many times.  To many people, a good deal usually means after you put down 25% downpayment, you can get an annual return rate of 8% or higher on the money you invest.  But my client is very different.  She would only like to have the expenses break even with(i.e. equal)  the income.  Typical expenses of property may include: mortgage payment, tax & insurance, utilities, management fee.  Thus if the total rental income minus all these expenses still comes up with a positive figure, we call it a positive income or positive cash flow.  However, my client has a very high tax bracket and she does not care too much of her income because most of it goes to Uncle Sam (tax office). 

Another two very important factors to bear in mind are the potential of the income property and cost of maintenance.  If the property is newer and does not require any major repairs in the next 10 years and it is located at a upcoming area, it is considered good.  Some good indicators of the upcoming of a certain area are growth in  good schools, in jobs and in infrastructure (easy commute).

Since different people have different needs, a good deal to one person may not be so to another one.  Please feel free to contact me if you want a free anyalysis of your real property investment.

Dear Reader:

This is a real story.  About 20 years ago, the housing market was also the buyer’s market.  Houses moved very slowly with little transactions and longer negotiation time.  At that time, it looked normal to many traditional buyers, i.e. buyers could ask for discount and not bidding up the offering prices.

I remember I met a couple who had just won a big lotto and looking for the best home in a good area of San Mateo County.  I showed them the best and they liked it.  At that time, the asking price for their ideal house was $650,000 and the sold comparables came out to be only $600,000.  Normally, this house had sat in the market for over 5 months.  The husband was willing to offer $630,000 but not the wife.  In view of the sold comparables, I found that maybe $610,000 was a good offering price.  Unfortunately, we have a competitor at that time and the seller did not even counter us. 

End of the story, this couple failed to get this house and the sold price happened to be $630,000.

Moral of this story, although we worked diligently and tried to help our clients get their dream house at the best price but if your clients really fall in love with a certain property, it is ok to pay over the market price than to lose it.

Do you agree?

Believe it or not, gambling can make your understand yourself better.

As we all know, gambling is a risky game and a game about taking risk.  If you live in San Francisco, you may join the senior club, especially the Asian senior club, to take the gambling tour bus weekly.  The tour bus usually departs at least 4 times daily from some hot public location such as Misstion & 16th (close to the bart station), China town (where a lot of senior homes located).  The seniors by playing $13 may get back $10 coupon for slot machine plus food.  Overnite trip to the casino s at Reno is about $23 per person and one can get back about $32 coupon from different casinos in total plus 2 or 3 meals.  This is obviously a great deal if one does not lost money or just lost a little bit. 

When my parents alive, joining the gambling tour are their favorite.  While my father is very afraid of losing money, he only played penny machine and he would like to switch machines if nothing came out after 10 bets.  On the contrary, my mother liked to play with dollar machine and would not want to leave machine until she won sort of jackpot or losted all her money.  As we can see here, two very different character. 

What about you?  Have you thought about your gambling habit?  Would you stay until you hit a jackpot or at least a small one before you quit that machine?  For me, it is very tempting to stay until I can strike some “bonus play”.  There are different types of bonuses which are very amusing.  I remember one even sychronize children’s video game as the slot machine is about driving an airplane and the jackpot would allow you to shoot the enemy’s planes and the chair can actually move.  I was quite pissed off at that as I was never good at playing video games and of course, could not knock down too many planes, hence would not win much.

Some people are very discipline such as my sister.  She set a limit of her losing and if she lose straightly half of her limit, she would stop and just watch other people play.  She would take a break, get a drink, walk around and try other machine maybe an hour later.  If after an hour’s break, she still cannot win, she may quit totally.  In conclusion, she seldom lost money.  She also would budget how much she can gamble for a year and record her winning or lost.  In reality, she does not earn much money but she is never poor because she knows how to budget her income and expenses.

For myself, I am quite an adventuous person and many times do not want to leave the slot machine until I see the “bonus”.  I am also not very discipline as like many losers, I always tell myself the next one will be the jackpot and that is exactly how so many people lose money.  When I win, I do not want to leave because I think there will be more to come.  When I lose, I still do not want to leave because I think the next one will be the “hit”.  Fortunately, I also set a limit and no matter what, if I reach my losing limit, I will stop.

Have you thought about gambling can really reflect your character?  Do you agree?

Remember 10 years ago, I joined the part time Census interviewer in San Francisco.  I had been working very hard to approach many homeless people and encountered a lot of obstacles.  For example, I learned that many of them although physically are capable of working but mentally not ready or reluctant to get the identity varification such as social security card that they need for work.  I had also visited many homeless temporary shelter but even we brought in many statistics with our efforts (my team memebers and myself), the government at last decided not to include this group.

http://www.examiner.com/a-2495262~San_Francisco_working_to_prevent_Census_undercount.html

As indicated from the linked message, San Francisco had been undercount a lot and so a lot of justified funding is not allocated to San Francisco.  San Francisco has long been paradise for immigrant – legal and illegal.  Many illegal residents though work hard and pay their taxes will hesitate to report their existence because of fear of the strict new immigration investigation team.  A lot of them have limited education, speak very little English and are hard to persuade they do need to report.

I, myself, also try to google the answers to many questions relating to census but cannot find it.  I believe the govenment should advertise not only to report the head counts but also set up a multi-language hotline for people’s queries and questions.  Or if you know, there is one, please do not hesitate to let me know.

When San Francisco was compared to California 10 years ago (statistics based on 2000 census), I find that San Francisco has less white people about 49%, more Asians and less homeowners  and more people stay 5 year or longer (move less than other Californian).  Indeed the house price in San Francisco is considered quite stable, has not dropped to the extent as the other part of California.  I think this might be due to the preference of new immigrants, the influx of hot money from Asia especially China.

Your opinions are highly valued. 

Have you ever experienced this?  You are taking vacation but you are still thinking of your work?  This is quite common for professionals who are sales related such as realtors.  However, this year, I managed to shut myself off completely from my work by which I call a complete rest.  I shut off my business phone, my emails, my websites and I would say do not even bother to turn on any computer.  In this way, you can let your body and mind completely rest and recharged.

When I came back to work, I found that many visitors had put comments on my blog but were spamed because I had not touched my blog during my vacation periods.  I truly apologized and wish all my supporters will continue to read my blog.

Thank you very much for all your support and I will try my very best to continue to write something that is meaningful to you.

Thank you very much.

Very often, we heard people wanted to give up their lives because of hurdles, problems, unhappy events, issues.  But without life, nothing left.

Once upon a time, an unemployed youth went to a mountain to commit suicide because he went bankrupted, his wife went away and he felt there was nothing meaningful for him to stay alive.

He walked and walked and trying to pick the best part to jump.  then he met a monk.  The monk invited him to have a tea at the temple and insisted the youth to come.  Not willingly, this young man sat down and tasted the first cup of tea that the monk gave him.  The monk asked the youth, ” this tea was soaked with the top quality tea leaves, is it good?”  “No, it tastes just like water,” answered the youth, ” you should not soaked the tea leaves with cold water,” added the youth.

“Yes, you are right,” said the monk, then he poured another cup of tea to the youth.  This time, the monk used boiling water.  “How is it now,” asked the monk.  “Excellent, full of aroma” answered the youth.

“Do you know the difference between these two cup of tea?” asked the monk.  “Of course, one used cold water, one used boiling water.”  “Right, young man, tea leaves’ real taste can only be brought up by boiling water”

Thinking about the real meaning of this, the youth gave up his suicidale plan.

Moral of this story:  One can only live better after comquering the life’s obstacles.