Here’s a new way large commercial buildings are being bought and sold. The birthplace of the idea was Orange County, California…and it’s quickly become a multi-billion-dollar industry.

The novelty is viewing real estate as securities, like stocks and bonds. Succinctly, multiple investors join together taking title to purchased buildings directly, through the age-old tenancy-in-common (TIC) form of ownership (rather than through a corporation or partnership].

Tenancy-in-common dates back to (more…)

Homeowners who are fed up with rising property taxes could get a big break under a proposal in Congress that would make it easier for them to deduct real estate taxes on their federal income tax return.

Federal law now allows property taxes to be deducted–but only by people who itemize deductions on their federal returns.

Many taxpayers don’t itemize their deductions but instead take take the standard deductions when filling out their annual (more…)

San Diego real estate investor Jeff Brown says real estate investing is a lot like pitching. Paying attention pays off…timing is everything…just like (more…)

The Financial Times reported that Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, predicted that there was a very real possibility that the US would be plunged into a Japan-style slump, with house prices declining for years.

Professor Shiller, co-founder of the respected S&P Case/Shiller house-price index, said: “American real estate values have already lost around $1 trillion [£503 billion]. That could easily increase threefold over the next few years. This is a much bigger (more…)

Zillow.com has launched “EZ Ads” among other features to attract user-generated content to its real estate site, increase visitation, and generate revenue. Zillow’s do-it-yourself ad capability allows anyone to create an ad and then (more…)

Real estate veteran Jack Peckham is featured in Dinald Trump’s newest book, “The Best Real Estate Advce I Ever Received.”

Peckham’s advice to Trump centered around his belief that the industry’s mantra of “Location, Location, Location” is no longer the key, as it once was. Rather, Peckham explained to Trump, the real estate industry’s new mantra has been replaced (more…)

The most viewed article today on our BarterNews.com website isn’t surprising given the focus on real estate and the challenging subprime loan market. However, the article focuses on (more…)

Read an interesting blog by San Diego’s Roberta Murphy. She pointed out that the first government-challenged like-for-like property exchange occurred when two farmers agreed to exchange horses. One owned six white horses, the other six black horses.

After the amicable trade the federal government claimed that a taxable event had occurred. Not so, claimed the farmers. They challenged the government and (more…)

The National Auctioneers Association’s latest data shows the incredible real estate slowing, which previously was the auction industry’s fasting-growing niche. Residential real estate was the organization’s (more…)

Longtime California real estate titan Fred Sands, speaking to a group of Realtors at the Southern California region of Sotheby’s International Realty, was very candid because “he was no longer in the home-selling business.” (Sands now leads Vintage Capital Group, an investment firm that focuses on commercial real estate,)

Here is a capsule of Sands thinking:

1) The last five or six years were not normal. So if you’ve been (more…)