The Capital Gains Blog

Archive for the ‘Long Term Capital Gains’ Category

Question: Any upper ceiling in investing in bonds to avoid long term capital gains with regard to sale of house property?

I want to invest the entire sale proceeds of my apartment in India

Answer: 1. To save incometax on long term capital gains, you are required to invest only the NET gains made in the transaction.

2. Your investment earns 5.25% interest p.a.

3. The amount so invested is locked up with Rural Electrification Corporation or National Highways Authority of India for a maximum period of 3 years.

4. There is a limit of Rs. 50 lacs that can be invested in this way, per investor per financial year.

5. You are free to invest the remaining sum (excluding capital gains) in fixed deposits which may offer higher rates of interest like 10.5% or even 11 per cent (with some Housing Finance Companies.)

6. Both the interest earned from such deposits as well as amounts with REC and NHAI are fully taxable.

Long-term goals led to stock offering

The growing tension in finance between investors hungry for short-term gains and public companies committed to long-term goals is playing out for one Sioux Falls bank and its far-away shareholders. The centerpiece of the clash of values is a scathing three-page letter addressed to Home Federal Financial Corp.’s board of directors. It is from one of the largest investors in the Sioux Falls bank …

Obama Speaks Arabic

A Solar-Powered Home: Will It Pay Off?

Homeowners who install photovoltaic power systems receive numerous benefits: lower electric bills, lower carbon footprints and potentially higher home values.

7/20/09: White House Press Briefing

Question: Should I buy a house or continue to rent?

I’m 53 years old and don’t mind renting a house.I have a nice 3 bedroom on 2 acres, and with utilities it comes to $950 a month – heat and all.
I have enough for a 20% + down payment for a house in rural Montana ($130K) where I live (housing is inexpensive and real estate slowly going up)
In the long run do I really gain anything by buying? I have no one to leave it too, I don’t pay insurance now , or have to fix anything or pay property taxes.
It is better just to keep my money in the bank and in long term CDs or buy a house? Is a house “that’ good an investment at my age?

Answer: Well at 53 you are still pretty young. You could live another 30 or 40 years or more. One advantage for you to buy would be if you lock in a 30 year fixed rate loan is your payments will not go up, like they would if you rent. (property taxes may still go up)

Did housing’s troubles double?

Has local real estate reached its bottom? Great amounts of energy is expended in the repeated parsing of relatively short-term housing statistics, typically collected from a month to a year in duration. Recently, depending on the measurement chosen,…

Indoor Mold overview

Time to leave the country?

It’s January. The weather’s miserable. And come April, the government is going to tax high earners until they bleed. The answer? Leave the country. Relocating to a tax haven in the Channel Islands is no longer an idle threat.

Higher-income

Question: Sell or not to sell?

My husband and I are thinking of relocating to Cypress, TX. We have a mortgaged house in the southwestern part of Puerto Rico. This house was bought for 139K and is now appraised at aprox. 185K (living in it for two years). This represents 46k on equity but we have to pay 5% commision to the realtor and 10% in taxes (We don’t have the advantages of tax free capital gain for living in the property for more than two years) and even though the realtor’s commision is deductible from the income tax, it will still represent an expense of 13k. We currently pay $876 for the mortgage and we were thinking that renting will be an option since I want a long term real estate investment. The problem is that I am not sure if it will be rented for more than that because of PR is in recession and I am afraid it won’t rent enough for us to make any cash flow.. One house in my neighborhood rented for $850 after a few months. Should I sell it or rent it?

Answer: renting is dangerous–especially when you won’t be there to check on the condition of the house, deal with overdue rent,etc. If you go this route, I would definately use a real estate agent to handle it –one that will make sure that your property isn’t abused or neglected. i don’t know what the normal rental amounts are in P.R., but you have to keep in mind that you will still have to pay insurances, taxes, and maintenance on the property, so you will have to rent it for quite a bit more than your mortgage payment in order to keep it from drowning you with debt.

Unfortunately, it is a buyer’s market right now in real estate and it may take awhile to sell your property if you expect to get the full anticipated equity out of it.

Middle-Market Companies Monetize Real Estate in Sale Leaseback Transactions to Meet Financial Objectives

AUSTIN, Texas—-AIC Ventures, L.P., an investment fund manager providing alternative finance solutions to middle-market companies nationwide, has completed two industrial sale leaseback transactions.

Property to buy in Sharm El Sheikh