Tax rules for Selling Your Home   Until recently, if you purchased a home, you were required to keep track of the original cost and the cost of improvements to the home for tax purposes.  Then, when you sold the home, if you made a profit on the sale, you had to either pay tax on the profit, or roll the profit forward into your next home, and the next home and the next.   Someday, when you stopped buying homes, you might have to pay tax on the accumulated profits on all of your homes.  Unless, of course, you were over age 55 when you sold the final home, in which case, you were exonerated from at least some of the tax bite.  Confused?  Understandable.   But times change and so do tax laws.  Keep in mind that, as with any tax law, there are exceptions to the rules and special rules for special cases, and it always makes sense to speak with a tax professional before making decisions that affect your personal residence.                                                                        *If you own the home for at least 5 years and live in the home as your primary residence for at least 2 of the 5 years, and sell the home for a profit of not more than $250,000 (or $500,000 if you are married and filing a joint return), you don't have to pay tax on the profit, nor do you have to report the sale of the home on your income tax return.                                                   *  If you don't meet the above requirements, you might have to pay tax on the profit from your house.                                           *  If you use part of the home for business purposes, you do need to keep track of all of the costs associated with your home, so that you can take a tax deduction for the business portion of your home.

termites 101...

Jeff Lewis, from Bravo's hit show 'Flipping Out', gives his tips on selling...

The home staging checklist...
	Even in the best of markets, sellers can struggle to make their properties stand out.  Economic head winds may be out of your control, but you can dramatically improve your chances of making a sale by devoting attention to an often overlooked corner of real estate marketing - home staging.                                                                                                          The goal of home staging is for the buyer to feel as if they are mentally moving in... if they cannot mentally feel and see themselves living there, you've lost them.  Here are six simple tips to help home sellers better position themselves in a sluggish market.   1.  Get them inside   The first thing a prospective buyer notices about a home is not the living room but the front yard.  A lot of people think staging is the inside only.  But you have to stage the outside to get them inside.  They also say to make sure there aren't too many potted plants scattered around the property with dead plants in them.     2.  Un-Clutter each room    A cluttered room will appear too small to buyers.  Homeowners should go through each room of the house and divide their belongings into two piles"  "keep" and " give up".  Items in the "keep" pile can be used to stage the room, while those in the "give up" pile should be stored elsewhere.  The decluttered rooms may appear to be bare, but the buyer won't think so.  You are selling the space, not the things, and the buyer won't be able to visualize if there is too much stuff in the room.     3.  Balance Hard and Soft Surfaces                                                              When staging a particular room, it's essential to have a good balance of hard surfaces, such as a coffee table top, and soft surfaces, like carpet.  For example, a room with a cushy, 7 foot long sofa, a love seat and four club chairs, has too many soft surfaces and not enough hard surfaces.  It might be helpful, to add some wood wingback chairs, in this instance.  On the other hand, if you have hardwood floors, but no rugs, it's too hard and you might want to add a rug.   4.  Work in Ones or Threes                                                                           It is usually best to arrange items on top of hard surfaces in ones or threes.  The three items should be closely grouped together in a triangle shape.  For hard surfaces with less area, however, a single item will do.                                                                                                                      5. Decide from the doorway                                                                                                                                                                                          Since would-be buyers will get their first impression of each room from the doorway, sellers should use that perspective to judge their staging work.  If you check how the room looks from the doorway, you will be better able to ensure that each room will appeal to the buyers.   6.  Make your place "Q-tip clean"   A properly staged home should be immaculate or "Q-tip clean".  The purpose of ensuring the house is spotless is more than simply making it presentable.  If a home is unkempt, a buyer will wonder what other, less visible problems there may be with the property.