10 Things to Consider Before Buying a Vacation Home

As you schlep your ski gear to your favorite resort for the umpteenth time or search for lodging near your favorite beach on a holiday weekend, you may think how much easier life would be if you had your own vacation home. An estimated 1.13 million vacation homes were sold in the U.S. last year, …

Tax Implications for Converting a Primary Residence to Rental Property

f you have outgrown your current residence or want to move for other reasons, you have a few choices to make, such as selling or renting out your home. If market conditions are favorable, you could sell the property, cashing in your equity and making a profit. If getting your equity out of the property …

Out-of-town buyers reshape Miami real estate design

Out-of-town buyers aren’t just snapping up Miami’s prime real estate — they’re also changing the way luxury developers build. As more out-of-towners decide they want to put down roots in South Florida rather than simply buy investment properties for the rental market, they’re asking for bigger, better, more expensive designs. Units equipped with quarters for …

Rent-to-Own Homes Make a Comeback

Wall Street firms have found a new way to profit from consumers with blemished credit who can’t qualify for a mortgage: let them rent a home first with the option to buy it later.Rent-to-own programs, once run mainly by small operators, were popular with cash-strapped consumers during the 1990s. They faded a decade later when …

Seattle’s Luxury Homes Get a Tech Boom Boost

The technology boom is pushing its way north up the Pacific Coast, boosting real-estate prices, sparking neighborhood squabbles and creating new demand for luxury homes asking $1.5 million or more.Real-estate agents say Seattle, the longtime home of software giant Microsoft and online-retailing behemoth Amazon, is attracting more technology firms because it offers a combination of …

Reverse-mortgage change saves homes for surviving spouses

Soon after Judy Stephens, of Lafayette, La., lost her husband in January, she got hit with more bad news, this time from the mortgage company. She needed to come up with $107,000 — the amount of principal, accrued interest and fees racked up by the reverse mortgage on the home she owned with her husband …