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 Arlene Wright-Correll-CEC,ACE,GRI,CRS,CRB,CREA (Retired) After 43 successful years in the field of national and International real estate I closed my practice to do some of the many things I never had time for. However, the mind (or at least my mind) never strays far from a field that I loved and still love.

Here I will share insight into the world of real estate and will gladly answer what questions I can for a modest problem solving fee. That is exactly what the real estate world revolves around. Problem solving. Unless the house has a hole in the roof, most real estate problems revolve around ownership.  You need to get on with your life and you need to do it as inexpensively as you can, as quickly as you can without tying up what is usually your only asset in the whole world.  I remember all those people in Texas in the mid 80's when the bottom's fell out of their marketplace. The agents had thousands of listings and no buyers.  I was a buyer, but the agent's were not problem solvers. I finally got so disgusted with them I wrote an article that was published in the Houston paper saying agent's, upon listing a property, should be responsible for making the mortgage payments until the property was sold!  Needless to say my popularity in that city plummeted!

Regardless, there are lots of good agents out in the real estate world. However as a previous owner of several well known real estate companies, I know agents.  Nuff said.

My forte was section 1031 of the IRS code or tax deferred exchanges and section 1041 of the IRS code which is trusts and asset management.  Also successfully buying over 435 single family homes with little or no down payment. So I know how to make it big in real estate with little deals because I learned from the best of them.

In this column I will share what I know and if you have a question I will answer for a nominal fee of $15.00. You may not like the answer, but it will probably solve the problem and that price is $985.00 less than I used to charge for my answers. You can pay via PayPal or send us your personal check. Personal check answer take longer because your check has to clear. So if you are in a hurry send a U.S. money order or a cashier's check or use PayPal sending your payment to avalonsg@scrtc.com or checks and money orders to Trade Resources Unlimited attention of the Cheap Q & A dept. 100 Dave Wintsch Rd., Munfordville, KY 42765.  Please be advised the only thing we are selling here are answers.

In the meantime, here is some free real estate advice. We will be adding to it each week.

Getting more dollars for your home 

When you are trying to get the best of any new tax rate try using gift-leasebacks.

Last week we talked about gift-leasebacks. Here is another tactic. The leaseback-borrowback. Suppose you don't want to give up the cash you pay under the lease terms. You can borrow the money you pay, at a fair rate. Suppose, you pay $5,000.00 a year to lease equipment from, the kid's trust. If that shifts income from a 40% to a 15% bracket you will save $1,250.00 per year in tax. Now you borrow back that $5,000.00 from the trust and pay your kid's trust, say 8% interest on the loan. That's $400.00 per year, fully deductible if you use that money in your business. You now have the use of $4,600.00 in net cash and will save another $100.00 a year in tax.

You can always repay the loans at college tiime and your kids can use the money for college expenses. Remember, make sure there is a formal note or loan, fair interest rate and that all the payments are actually made.

Last but not least, you can hire your kids and put them on the payroll. This includes grandkids. There are always jobs for them. Filing, running errands, put their pictures in your ads or on your brochures.

The money you pay your kids is deductable at your marginal rate, which may be 40% or more. Your kids may owe no income tax. Up to $3,800.00 worth of 1994 income (earned or unearned) may be offset by the standard deductions. If your business is not incorporated, services performed by kids under age 18 are not subject to Social Security taxes.

Remember to uphold deductions to your kids, pay a reasonable amount and keep careful records. The courts have upheld deduction of $1,200.00 in wages to a 7 year old for performed simple tasks for a family business.

Isn't it better to teach your children where money comes from, how to earn it or better still that they are expected to ear it, how to keep it and how to keep the dragons from winning?

We recommend you check with your accountant, financial advisor and/or tax attorney on any advice you read here or anywhere for that matter. You must also have them check on any current changes in the tax code because the IRS is constantly moving the cheese.

Learn the Mortgage Banking and Loan Business

  If you have a question on buying, selling or managing real estate, please put it in writing and put the words real estate question in the subject line and mail it to askarlene@scrtc.com . Please be concise with your problem, stating the area you live in and what you are trying to solve, sell or buy or deal with. We are quite creative with buying solutions especially with no money down. As soon as we get a notice from PayPal that you have paid for your answer we will get back to you.  Should you be that one in a million person who will dumbfound me with a question I cannot answer, I will immediately tell PayPal to refund your money. 1 question, 1 answer. Got 2 questions, then we will require another $15.00 unless the 2nd question pertains to the same thing in the 1st question.

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When making your real estate investment phone calls, try to keep your costs down, even the long distance ones because part of real estate investment is saving money by finding out about the current costs, what's new, whether you need something or not.  Sometimes calling up an old friend or two and asking their opinion helps you make the best choices. Talk about it! We have a real inexpensive plan where you can call from anywhere for only 3.5 cents a minute. No need for cell phone plans or other expensive items. We all want the best value for our hard earned cash and we can do it for only 3.5 cents a minute nationwide or 10 cents a minute to over 200 countries with Telcom3. We have been using them for years. No state or federal taxes and we can call from anywhere using a toll free number. Check out Telcom3 today!