I have blogged/shared this before, I will keep sharing it!  Furthermore anyone who takes all the appliances, cabinets, toilets, etc from their short sale/foreclosed home should also be punished.  Do a short sale or modification the right way – angry people do dumb things that will/can come back to bite them for years.

For all your real estate needs contact:

Carole Sanek, Licensed Florida Realtor

http://twitter.com/teamsanek and I encourage you to become a follower

TeamSanek can get you started down the road of your real estate adventure. We can get you started, walk you through everything, hold your hands through the process and be there when you are handed the keys to your new home. That is why we are TeamSanek–and this team will be there for you all the way because we want you to Capture The Dream. Visit the Castle Dream website at Castle Dream Real Estate, LLC or contact her direct at 1-352-540-0177 or email her at Carole Sanek

FREE BUYER AND SELLER REPORTS

Castle Dream Listings

Castle Dream IDX Search

Central Florida Search

Free Florida New Home Search

SEND TO A FRIEND

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Here we go – drum roll please – the FREE TIP THIS WEEK IS:

http://bit.ly/aSFNEY          

We are entering into the stormy season all over our United States and this week’s tip is filled with valuable information aptly titled “Before Disaster Strikes”.

Carole Sanek, Licensed Florida Realtor

http://twitter.com/teamsanek and I encourage you to become a follower

TeamSanek can get you started down the road of your real estate adventure. We can get you started, walk you through everything, hold your hands through the process and be there when you are handed the keys to your new home. That is why we are TeamSanek–and this team will be there for you all the way because we want you to Capture The Dream. Visit the Castle Dream website at Castle Dream Real Estate, LLC or contact her direct at 1-352-540-0177 or email her at Carole Sanek

FREE BUYER AND SELLER REPORTS

Castle Dream Listings

Castle Dream IDX Search

Central Florida Search

Free Florida New Home Search

SEND TO A FRIEND

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Now we all know that during the election we were promised that the pork would stay out of proposed bills, we do know that right?  Yesterday a blog was posted on the Inman News regarding what the author uncovered hiding in the HEALTH CARE REFORM PACKAGE. 

It’s not pretty, and it is going to make a lot of people very angry.  It truly ticked off my husband/RE Broker.  This is not just about Realtors this is about any business owner – this should raise your hackles too.

Here goes:

Courtesy of the health care reform bill, every business in the country is about to undergo a dramatic change in how expenses are reported. These changes promise to be an accounting nightmare for virtually everyone.

 A recent article in CNNMoney.com focuses on one provision of the health care bill. This simple change is designed to help close the estimated $300 billion gap between what individuals and businesses owe the Internal Revenue Service versus what they pay.

What the provision doesn’t address is the record-keeping and accounting costs that could far exceed the amount of revenue the bill will generate. The impact on the real estate industry could be profound.

Traditional 1099 tax forms are the mechanism for reporting non-wage income that can include commissions, mortgage interest paid, pension distributions and dividend income. Brokers typically issue 1099s to those who do contract work for their business, most notably their sales staff.

In 2008, Congress passed a new bill creating a 1099-K that goes into effect in 2011. This bill is designed to track non-wage income through credit cards. Credit-card companies will be required to send their clients and the IRS an annual form documenting the year’s transactions. The change will make it more difficult for those who sell their products or services using credit cards to hide their income.

According to the CNNMoney article: “The 1099-K is only required when a merchant has at least 200 payment transactions a year totaling more than $20,000. But it applies to all payment processors, including PayPal, Amazon.com, and others that service very small businesses.”

While the 1099-K change will be the first one to kick in, the change that will have a huge impact on every business and virtually every real estate transaction will be the changes in the “1099-Misc” form.

The new law that begins in 2012 requires that “business payments or purchases that exceed $600 in a calendar year will need to be accompanied by a 1099 filling. In essence, the 1099-Misc is having its role changed from a form for tracking off-payroll employment to one that must accompany virtually any sizeable business transaction.”

The key point to note here is that the person who makes the payment is responsible for issuing the 1099. The ramifications for the real estate industry are huge. Here is a list of just a few of the issues the industry must address before this law goes into effect in 2012.

1. Major companies will receive millions of “1099-Misc” forms
Most agents spend more than $600 on office supplies. Agents and brokers will have to obtain the taxpayer ID from organizations such as Staples or Office Depot to provide them with a 1099 if they spend more than $600 per year.

The same will be true for any other real estate vendors the agent or broker uses, including Web hosting, enhanced listings on various real estate portals, marketing companies, newspapers and magazines. The list is endless. A key question is how will these major companies be able to track all of this and how much additional cost will this add to their products?

2. Are agents required to give their brokers 1099-Misc?
Will the agent have to issue a 1099-Misc to his or her broker for each transaction? Will the broker have to issue a 1099-Misc to each seller? Who will be responsible for issuing a 1099-Misc when there is a referral fee to another agent or brokerage? What about the situation where an agent credits part of the commission back to the clients?

3. Buyer and seller 1099s
In the past, the escrow, title and mortgage company may have issued a 1099 with their closing statements. The law appears to require buyers and sellers to issue a 1099-Misc if the services cost more than $600. On a typical transaction, this could require a 1099-Misc for the escrow, the title company, the attorneys, the mortgage company, some inspectors (depending if they hit the $600 threshold), the termite company, plus contractors who handle any repairs.

The troubling issue is how to educate the public about this new requirement and what types of systems will need to be in place to handle this huge mountain of additional transaction paperwork.

Complicating the issue even further: How will these issues be addressed for clients who are not fluent in English? Having all these issues resolved prior to 2012 seems unlikely. The result could be complete and utter chaos.

4. It gets even better
Most agents spend more than $600 in gasoline. If I go to the same gas station, do I have to get the owner’s taxpayer ID number and issue a 1099-Misc, or will it apply only if I buy gasoline from the same company?

If I work out of my home, the law seems to suggest that I am required to give a 1099-Misc to the utility companies, to the people who pick up the trash, my home and auto insurance company, and even possibly my local grocery store if I spend more than $600 in open-house refreshments.

The bottom line is that this single provision in the health care reform bill will result in massive amounts of new regulations and massive confusion when it goes into effect in 2012.

This will translate into substantially higher transaction costs across the board. Let’s hope that someone in Washington wakes up to the consequences of this provision and does something about it before it turns the real estate business (as well as many other businesses) totally upside down.

That is how this blog post ended.  Now we can begin to the fight to stop this BS nonsense.  Pass this information along to anyone whom you know that owns their own businesses.  We cannot rely on big companies to put America back to work and raise the economy.  If every small business owner hired one person across this country everything would improve greatly economically.  Unfortunately this sneaky pork has the potential to destroy rather than build and it is time to stop this.  What does this have to do with health care reform?

Carole Sanek, Licensed Florida Realtor

http://twitter.com/teamsanek and I encourage you to become a follower

TeamSanek can get you started down the road of your real estate adventure. We can get you started, walk you through everything, hold your hands through the process and be there when you are handed the keys to your new home. That is why we are TeamSanek–and this team will be there for you all the way because we want you to Capture The Dream. Visit the Castle Dream website at Castle Dream Real Estate, LLC or contact her direct at 1-352-540-0177 or email her at Carole Sanek

FREE BUYER AND SELLER REPORTS

Castle Dream Listings

Castle Dream IDX Search

Central Florida Search

Free Florida New Home Search

SEND TO A FRIEND

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Carole Sanek, Licensed Florida Realtor

New idea we had at Castle Dream Real Estate LLC is to blog about all the FREE things we offer buyers and sellers on a weekly basis every Wednesday. 

We have so much information available – and yes, it is ALL FREE!

So  mark your calendars, bookmark this site – because this is valuable information and again ALL FREE! 

It won’t cost you one red cent.

Carole Sanek, Licensed Florida Realtor

http://twitter.com/teamsanek and I encourage you to become a follower

You should see the crap some people do in anger to their homes.  Let’s stop for a moment and think about that word “their”.  The problem is by the time they leave that home it is no longer theirs.  If the average time for a foreclosure to take place is 14 months that means the former owners has probably not paid their mortgage (there is that word again) in 14 months so what is it that they believe is theirs?

I have shown homes where nothing is left to the imagination but 4 walls.  I have shown seriously damaged homes.  It never ceases to amaze me that people believe that they can just take what they believe is theirs and disappear with it.  It is not theirs, and I know that statement probably will tick off someone reading this but it what it is.

It is actually theft.  It is stealing from the lender whom unfortunately you owe money to no matter what the circumstances are.  I am upside down, so don’t go all nasty on me for saying these people are thieves.  While I am upside down if I was faced with foreclosure I would not be stripping my house down to the barewalls and please tell me why would anyone take the toilets and what the heck did they do with them?  I don’t want to even imagine.

Carole Sanek, Licensed Florida Realtor

http://twitter.com/teamsanek and I encourage you to become a follower.

The settlement has been announced and it will cost Countrywide and Bank of America $108 million. The FTC has been investigating this since 2008. Homeowners will have certain fees that were inappropriately charged refunded to them.

 There is no way I know of yet to find out if your name is on the list. I will receive further information and keep you updated as I receive it. What did they do wrong? Well now the list goes on doesn’t it? However in this case as the market was collapsing, Countrywide created subsidiaries to do the work, then marked up the price of those services by 100% or more. This was done to increase profits from default-related services in bad economic times said the FTC.

 These were illegal (oops) and excessive (shame on them).

 Countrywide also failed to disclose to borrowers that they added these new charges to their mortgages and well they lied to homeonwers about what they owed on their loans. They collected these fees – oh yes obviously to the tune of $108,000,000 – stay tuned.

Carole Sanek, Licensed Florida Realtor

TeamSanek can get you started down the road of your real estate adventure. We can get you started, walk you through everything, hold your hands through the process and be there when you are handed the keys to your new home. That is why we are TeamSanek–and this team will be there for you all the way because we want you to Capture The Dream. Visit the Castle Dream website at Castle Dream Real Estate, LLC or contact her direct at 1-352-540-0177 or email her at Carole Sanek

FREE BUYER AND SELLER REPORTS

Castle Dream Listings

Castle Dream IDX Search

Central Florida Search

Free Florida New Home Search

SEND TO A FRIEND

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Isn’t this news about damn time?   Now that they have put their big boy shorts on with Countrywide will they go after the rest of the worst?

Very interesting.

Carole Sanek, Licensed Florida Realtor

I realize there are a lot of people who might be considering a strategic default but the consequences could mean paying rent to someone else for a very long time and we all know it is very difficult to p;ay rent and save for a large downpayment. 

My business is about marketing a product (home ownership) NOT about predicting the future – all I know is that while many of us may owe more than our homes are now worth, that’s today.  In 8-10 years it could be the other way around or close to that.  I think I would rather “pay rent” to myself and/or my lender for now.

It is something to really think about.

Carole Sanek, Licensed Florida Realtor