So you want to get a great investment of your TSP. Well your TSP should be rolled into real estate. But not just any old real estate. With the sub prime mortgage issue looking to continue hurting real estate prices your best bet is to find homes at rock bottom prices. There is no better way to find that than with property foreclosures. These are sometimes called distressed homes. I have actually seen some of these properties sell for under $10,000.00. So here is what you want to do, you can use your TSP or what is better known as the Thrifty Saving Plan. What exactly is this? The Federal Thrift Savings Plan, or TSP, is a retirement savings plan for USA civilians who are currently, or previously were, employed in the service of the United States Federal Government and is for those individuals in the United States uniformed services. This TSP as of July 31, 2007 have over USD$224,000,000,000, that’s a lot of cash floating around. You don’t need to roll it over in real estate you just need to pay a low $50.00 and apply for a loan. This loan can be used to purchase a foreclosed loan. This is a brilliant plan that many people are putting in action. However your first step is to:

Find A Listing Of Foreclosed Homes First:

WAIT!

Then when you sign up contact the TSP offices at 1-TSP-YOU-FRST (1-877-968-3778) and find out how much you qualify for. Then browse the List and look for properties that fall in that bracket.

Once you have done that then you are off to the races in finding a better investment.

Try and sign up for these guys too they offer a very large and comprehensive list of foreclosed properties.

Watch Some Investment Videos

Real estate loss taxes are very important to many people. This can take the form in losses on property rentals on an every day property as well as losses on a sale of real estate. However there are losses on real estate that take place. This differs if you are an individual or a company. The major concern is the carry forward of these losses. If you make a loss on the sale of a property then you are able to carry those loses to apply against your earning in future years.

Real Estate Loss Taxes for Landlords

Landlords must have up to date accounting records pertaining to the following the cost basis, the income, and total expenses (normally called net income). The best way to do this is with property software that calculates this on a spreadsheet. You can easily see your net income and profit and loss with these types of software.

Software that we recommend

In order to keep track of your real estate loss tax ensure you use:

• The purchase price of the property in question.
• The accumulated depreciation and annual depreciation for the current year.
• Total rental income,
• Total security deposits held and collected.

The expenses that you must consider are:

• Property management fees
• The total advertising costs incurred during the rental process.
• Property maintenance and repair costing – inclusive of utilities, landscaping, waste management etc.
• Property insurance expenses.
• Returned or reimbursed security deposits.

Once this is ascertained you can quickly determine if you made a loss or a profit. If you made a real estate loss of this kind then you can carry forward those loses to apply against income until you begin making a profit and then apply that to your taxes in the next year. However this changes if you decide to sell the property.

Real Estate Loss Taxes for Investors

If you purchase a property for $x.00 and sell it for less than $x.00 then this is considered a capital loss and can be brought forward to the following year. This would be coupled with the loses that you made if you had attempted to earn rental revenue and this also ended up being an operating loss. However you must note that: the IRS limits losses from property rentals to a maximum of $25,000 per annum with further information found in Schedule E of the IRS instructions.

To actually determine a real estate tax loss you must first calculate the losses. This is

SALE PRICE – COST BASIS = Gain / (LOSS)

Cost Basis is : Purchase Price + In purchase costs (realtor fees etc.) + property improvements + selling costs (advertising, real estate agent commission) – total accumulated depreciation.

If there is the loss the IRS schedule states ‘Generally, losses from passive activities that exceed the income from passive activities are disallowed for the current year. Unused passive losses are carried forward to all future years. A similar rule applies to credits from passive activities.’ Hence you must note that you can carry forward the losses. Please note it is always best to seek professional advice in these matters. Get free real estate loss tax advice here:

Get Tax Help Online Video

Global warming real estate concerns are more important than many real estate investors believe or even care to sit up and take notice of. The major problem will be that as the pace of the global warming effect takes place longer term investors should take notice of where to buy real estate, what type of real estate to buy and really how much to pay for real estate. The global warming effect has already affected real estate prices such as those in Florida where insurance costs have sky rocketed and driven the price of property ownership sky high. However as the impact of global warming real estate woes continue we examine the methodology of how to purchase global warming prepared real estate. Before you attempt to do anything you can make your home ‘environmentally ready’. Find a Remodler by just signing up by clicking on the REMODLER LINK TO YOUR LEFT!

You should not purchase properties that exist in lower lying communities and those that are drought prone and very hot out. This has two major effects, it gives rise to higher fuel costs for air conditioning and these areas are usually impacted faster by global warming.

Find out about your insurance options first before signing off at closing. Property location can cause very high insurance costs and mortgage lending companies will look at this when calculating the debt service ratio of a borrower. If you don’t consider buying global warming prepared real estate you could end up with extremely high insurance costs, limited insurance coverage and/or coverage that really does not protect the property at all.

Don’t buy Florida beach front property; this is because it’s right at sea level. Any beach front property globally cannot have a lifespan of 50 years or more. As global warming continues to cause rising sea levels then the coast line will recede. This is exacerbated as the existing home owners will have to face tougher building codes, zoning laws and restrictions and property coverage requirements. This is due to the fact that as state governments realize the damaging effect of these factors and will change laws to amend these problems.

Choose a property that is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified or what better known as LEED certified. These homes follow specific standards that are geared towards global warming real estate concerns. Lower energy costs and greater efficiency with land space mark what are galled greener building practices allow these individuals to create a home perfect to combat the effects of global warming.

These are only a few factors that might affect your properties; however you can make a step in the right direction by using these methods to combat the effects of this inevitable phenomenon and intimately make you a more prudent real estate investor.

Learn More About Global Warming In This Video

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

Double closing real estate is defined as the purchase and sale of a real estate or property at the same time. This process is actually a three party transaction, the initial vendor or seller, the real estate investor otherwise known as the middleman and the purchaser. There are varying reasons for double closing real estate. The most fundamental reason for double closing real estate is to allow the investor to utilize the purchaser’s money to purchase the property from the initial vendor. Double closing real estate transaction also allows the vendor some level of anonymity. The vendor uses the investor to mask his identity. The process involves the real estate investor entering into a sales contract with the initial vendor to purchase a property and then subsequently (before closing the purchase) enters into a simultaneous contract to sell the property to the final purchaser at a higher price. The investor or middle man then utilizes the double closing real estate transaction to close both transactions at the same time. There are different methods of double closing real estate; this depends specifically on the method of purchase and the type of vendor and type of purchaser. Primarily a purchaser would hand over the money to the investor who in turn would acquire the property but at that time a HUD-1 or settlement statement would be signed between the investor and purchaser, who would then have to wait until the transaction was closed to take possession of the property. In most instances the investor instructs the vendor to deed the real estate directly to final buyer.

There are of course several disadvantages of this double closing real estate transaction. There may be a problem in transfer tax collection where the initial vendor is not listed on the final closing document. Most mortgage lenders object to transactions between middlemen as they conduct their own real estate closings. The initial vendor might disapprove of the end profit made by the investor and cancel the transaction. Closing agents would require payment twice for conducting two transactions for one sale. Real estate agents will object to getting a lower price for the initial vendor and ultimately a lower commission. What is paramount in a double closing real estate transaction is that the closing agent is accommodating. This makes the process of keeping the anonymity of the purchaser and vendor and that the closings can take place at different locations. One of the easiest ways that we recommend to complete double closings is to create only one (1) settlement statement (HUD-1) between the vendor and the final purchaser, then include his profit margin as a clause or line item in the statement. This can be titled as a purchasers cost making the transaction less tax weary on the vendor and easily dealt with as an assignment or finders fee. Though the investor may be subject to a higher tax rate other than the on going capital gains tax, if it is run through a business then taxes can be reduced depending on how the business is set up. In these transactions the vendor might see only the disadvantages of double closing. This means that not only may the seller get a possibly lower final sale price but still have sales taxes on the final price; this is a definite annoyance to most sellers.