Many cities have enacted ordinances to protect various trees within their city. A long-time Palo Alto homeowner recently achieved a court ruling forcing his neighbor to remove Coast Redwood Trees whose roots were damaging his house. The legal actions were made more difficult by a real estate agent who indemnified the buyer of the house in order to get the house sold.A short summary by the long-time owner: In 2021, I sued my neighbor, with a one-sided result in my favor. I claimed for damage under state law #3479, and my neighbor’s ONLY defense was: “I was complying with PA’s tree ordinance”. The PA ordinance will not win against superseding state law. The 7-page opinion of the state judge never even mentioned the PA ordinance because it’s irrelevant against state law. But I still was forced to sue and pay my (winning) legal fees. My neighbor chose foolishly to go…
Although JLee Realty does not handle rental properties for clients, we watch what is happening in it to better understand Foster City real estate. On Sept 17, 2023, the San Jose Mercury News published an article titled “Bay Area rents see biggest drop in 27 months“. The article presents the ease of finding a one-bedroom apartment near Lake Merritt. The article cites ApartmentList.com as a source for the trends they cite, including a 3.1% year-over-year decline for the San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara metro area.The housing rental market has weakened, but the headline could create a misleading impression. The sky is not falling for the rental market. Look at the graph below created by Zumper.com.The peak rental price for a 2-bedroom apartment was reached in Aug-Sept of 2022. The “biggest drop” is being calculated from a price peak and isn’t a good choice for judging long-term trends. I’m looking at two-bedroom rental…
So far, in the 3rd quarter of 2023, Foster City house prices have reached all-time highs for both average and median prices. Although the house price per sq. ft. has climbed during the last three quarters, it is not at an all-time high.Let's look at Foster City real estate. The average size of houses sold in Foster City has spiked upward to an all-time high.There usually is quite a bit of variation in the average house size. However, Foster City, Los Altos Hills, Menlo Park, Millbrae, Pacifica, Portola Valley, San Carlos, San Mateo, and Woodside all show dramatic upward spikes in the average house size. In Santa Clara County, only Palo Alto shows a similar spike in average house size.Looking through the real estate trends for these cities does not show any other significant changes. Historically, cities in San Mateo County have had a high San Francisco newspaper readership. Cities…
A 1031 exchange is used to defer taxes on the sale of your investment property when your proceeds are invested in a new investment property. Although you probably consider a house you bought with the intention of flipping to be an investment, it is not considered by the IRS to be a property that was bought for investment purposes and thus does not allow it to be used in a 1031 exchange.Tax professionals recommend keeping an investment property obtained in a 1031 exchange for two years as a rental property. Some professionals will say that one year plus one day is sufficient for the 1031 exchange to avoid an IRS challenge.In 2008 the IRS issued a safe harbor rule saying it would not challenge the 1031 exchange because of the sale of your replacement property if:You rent the dwelling unit to another person at a fair rental price for 14…