More Americans are opting to live alone, with single buyers making up a quarter of all home purchases last year, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. In the U.S., there are 33 million one-person households, and living solo is becoming an international trend, MSN Real Estate reports.
Why are so many living alone? People are marrying later, divorcing more, and living longer, sociologists say.
One of the principle legal questions left in the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s decision striking down key portions of the Defense of Marriage Act (United States v. Windsor) was the tax impact it would have on same-sex spouses. That is, would the IRS now recognize the marriages of same-sex spouses who live in any state, or only in those states that legally recognize same-sex marriages?
For example, if a same-sex couple was married in Massachusetts (which recognizes same-sex marriage) but lives in Florida (which does not recognize such marriages), would the IRS consider them married?
More consumers are dusting off their cordless drills, tape measures and jigsaws, or at least are shelling out for paint, spackle or flooring products. Home remodeling is on an upswing, according to the National Association of the Remodeling Industry. A byproduct of rising home sales during this past year, new homeowners are spending more at big-box stores such as Lowe’s and Home Depot for their DIY projects. Home sellers are also adding to the increased sales at home improvement stores as they spruce up a home before putting it on the market. TV programmers, meanwhile, have been paying attention — and adding new home-improvement series or renewing old ones.
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With the great housing reform debate underway, the White House recently weighed in with President Obama’s plan for the future of housing finance in America. The President laid out a vision for housing finance, with key elements similar to those embraced by many stakeholders in the nation’s housing finance system. This is an issue that affects the well-being of every American, whether a homeowner or a renter, and we welcome the President’s attention and leadership.
Until this year, landlords who earned profits from their rentals didn’t have to worry about whether they qualified as a “real estate professional” for tax purposes. The only reason to seek to qualify as such was to avoid application of the incredibly complex passive loss rules.
These rules are designed to prevent landlords from deducting rental losses from their other non-rental income. So if you didn’t have rental losses, these rules didn’t concern you and you could care less whether or not you were a “real estate professional.”
This has now changed. Qualifying as a real estate professional will now benefit many landlords who earn profits from their rentals because, by doing so, they won’t have to pay the Net Investment Income tax (NII tax) on them.
The housing recovery is juicing the jobs market, but the jobs market isn’t returning the favor, according to Jed Kolko, chief economist at Trulia.
Riding on rising home sales, residential construction employment has shot up 4.5 percent year over year, far outpacing the national employment growth rate of 1.7 percent, he said.
But a high unemployment rate is holding back housing demand, Kolko noted, saying 25 to 34-year-olds in particular are suffering from the still-weak jobs climate, with only 75 percent of that cohort employed.
Though the housing recovery is trucking along, that doesn’t mean real estate scams have gone away. Home owners have been duped out of an average of $4,000 to $5,000 from scams, but even five-figure losses aren’t uncommon for those who have fallen prey to fake loan modifications and other housing fraud. Forbes recently highlighted three of the most common real estate scams today.
We always knew living in Washington was the best, but now it’s been nationally recognized as one of the Top 10 States for Quality of Life!
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