Check the Records

In order to reduce your property tax rate, you need to have a current evaluation of your property’s worth. One way to do that is to determine the taxable value of comparable homes in your neighborhood. You can do an online search or visit the assessor’s office to find that information. If your property’s value is out of line with others in your area you may be able to have your taxes reduced. Check your own property’s records and make sure the dimensions are recorded accurately, and the property is described correctly. Visit a real estate office and find out if there have been any recent comparable sales in your area. If so, determine if they sold for less than your property is assessed. You will need these comparable assessments to give you grounds for an appeal. As a general rule, it will bolster your chances to have your taxes reduced if you can come up with five examples of comparable properties that are assessed for less than your property is.

Appealing Your Property Assessment

Before you can even be considered for a property tax deduction, you must file a formal appeal. There is no real incentive for the government to reduce your taxes voluntarily – they will lose revenue. It’s up to you to prove your property is assessed at too high a rate and should be reduced. After you’ve done your research and are convinced you’re being taxed at too high a rate, you need to begin the appeals process. Visit the tax assessor’s office and get copies of the appeals form. You may also be able to download the form from you local government’s website. There may be a cutoff date for filing an appeal. Be sure to check on this so that you don’t accidentally miss an important deadline.

Documentation

It is vital for you to have as much documentation as you possibly can to back up your claim that your property is overvalued. Tax assessors are generally very busy, and sometimes they don’t take the time to properly evaluate a property. They may simply drive by and look at your home without actually seeing the inside. A drive-by means that they may miss important details, such as whether or not anything has been done (or not done) to the property to decrease its value. That’s where your research and documentation comes in. By accurately measuring your property and recording it you will have proof of actual dimensions, and whether or not comparable properties are assessed at a lower rate.

Professional Help

If you’ve done your homework and come to the conclusion that your property is assessed at more than its actual value, it may be to your advantage to have a professional appraisal done in order to validate your claim. If the appraisal reflects your findings, the extra expense could be offset by any reduction in your property taxes. Another helpful professional could be a tax attorney who can provide advice on additional ways to reduce your taxes. Consulting a local real estate agent may also help ensure that your appeal be accepted. They could verify that the comparables you found are accurate and relevant. If you’ve done your research correctly and can support your claim, you should definitely see a reduction on your property tax.

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Guest post from Bailey Harris. Bailey writes for www.insurancequotes.org.

Before going into property investing, you may consider the following two basic points:

•The purpose of investment – You need to first finalize on this aspect, whether you want to buy a property in anticipation of gaining some return on investment or you want to buy an apartment for self use. If it is just for investment purpose then you will not want to spend too much money and may go for vicinity whose value is likely to appreciate in the near future giving good return on investment. In the second case, where you want to buy a property for self stay, then ambience is of utmost importance, then you will probably not mind spending a few bucks extra for a house located in upmarket.

•Finance for investment – You should plan your budget and cash flow well in advance , as buying a property calls for huge investment. Once the purpose is decided upon, then roll your sleeves up to decide on the way of getting the investment financed. It is one of the most crucial parts of planning and need to be worked out well. You should first determine as to how much can you invest and what will be your source for getting the money. One part of the investment should come from personal savings and the other can be financed through some bank or financial institution. However, the percentage of finance from saving & bank needs to be chalked out. Bank finance would entail payment of installment, so you should calculate your monthly cash flow to work out the exact amount of installment which you can afford to pay. While deciding on the amount to be withdrawn from saving, you should consider if there is any immediate capital expenditure in the offing, then the percentage of saving will get reduced by that amount. This working will also help in determining the amount you can afford to invest.

Property can be bought with the help of a realtor, newspaper ads, online property sale sites or directly from the builders. You may also seek advice from some experienced person.

Recently REITs, on average, have been selling for about 20 percent less than their net asset values. In her article, It’s REIT Time, And You Can Buy Low, Kathy Kristof suggests that at these discounted prices, it might be a good time to look at real estate investment trusts.

To qualify as a REIT with the IRS, a real estate company must agree to pay out in dividends at least 90% of its taxable profit (and additional but less important requirements). By having REIT status, a company avoids corporate income tax. A regular corporation makes a profit and pays taxes on the entire profits, and then decides how to allocate its after-tax profits between dividends and reinvestment; but a REIT simply distributes all or almost all of its profits and gets to skip the taxation.

The REIT industry has a diverse profile, which offers many alternative investment opportunities to investors. REITs often are classified in one of three categories: equity, mortgage or hybrid.

Equity REITs
Equity REITs own and operate income-producing real estate. Equity REITs increasingly have become primarily real estate operating companies that engage in a wide range of real estate activities, including leasing, development of real property and tenant services. One major distinction between REITs and other real estate companies is that a REIT must acquire and develop its properties primarily to operate them as part of its own portfolio rather than to resell them once they are developed.

Mortgage REITs
Mortgage REITs lend money directly to real estate owners and operators or extend credit indirectly through the acquisition of loans or mortgage-backed securities. Today’s mortgage REITs generally extend mortgage credit only on existing properties. Many modern mortgage REITs also manage their interest rate risk using securitized mortgage investments and dynamic hedging techniques.

Hybrid REITs
As the name suggests, a hybrid REIT both owns properties and makes loans to real estate owners and operators.

There are about 190 REITs registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States that trade on one of the major stock exchanges — the majority on the New York Stock Exchange. Total assets of these listed REITs exceed $400 billion.

Investors typically are attracted to REITs for their high levels of current income, REIT dividends can reach 8% to 9% a year, and they offer a soothing sense of predictability that the market usually can’t match, and the opportunity for moderate long-term growth. These are the basic characteristics of real estate. In addition, investors looking for ways to diversify their investment portfolios beyond other common stocks as well as bonds are attracted to the unique characteristics of REITs.

There is a relatively low correlation between listed REIT stock returns and the returns of other market sectors. Thus, including listed REITs in your investment program helps build a diversified portfolio.

REITS are subject to ineptitude on the part of management just like any company’s stock, so diversification is important. As with most things, I would recomend an index fund such as Vanguard’s VGSIX.

And,it must be noted, that REIT dividends are fully taxable. This makes REITs an often-poor choice for taxable accounts, as REIT dividends are considered income by the IRS. As a result, REITs are best placed in a tax-deferred account.

It should also be noted that with the run real estate has been having, many people consider REITs to currently be overvalued.

For individual investors who want to put money into real estate, REITs offer perhaps the most accessible path without any of the expense and difficulty of buying properties directly and financial advisers often recommend that investors looking to build diversified portfolios should allocate 10% to 20% of their holdings to REITs.