Also, if you would like to learn more about how real estate investing can be a way to build wealth, please email me and we can run through the numbers. With prices down and interest rates low, this might be the best opportunity to use real estate to build your financial future.

This is great news. What makes that even better is that most of the other nine cities are large metropolitan areas [the exceptions are San Jose, which is basically a suburb of San Francisco, and Austin, which is in many ways a clone of the Triangle]. It says a lot for our hometown that we can hold our own when “playing above our weight class”

A 1031 Exchange [also called a Tax-Free Exchange, a Like-Kind Exchange, or a Starker Exchange] is a mechanism that allows investors to sell their investment property and reinvest the proceeds in another property without paying capital gains tax. You won’t avoid paying the tax entirely, but you can delay paying the taxman until much later. It’s somewhat like doing an IRA rollover — you sell all the assets in your old IRA/real estate and move the assets over to the new IRA/real estate without paying capital gains until you ultimately cash out.

There is an administrative burden. In particular, you need a “qualified intermediary” to manage the transaction [remember the IRA rollover example -- you can't touch the money]. A 1031 exchange, however, is still a great way to manage your investment property both now and in the future.

If you would like to know more about 1031 Exchanges, email me. I’d be happy to refer you to a Qualified Intermediary and help you with the sale/purchase of your investment property.