Jon's Blog

When you sell a stock, you owe taxes on your gain (the difference between what you paid for the stock and what you sold it for). The same is true with selling a home (or a second home), but there are some special considerations.How to Calculate GainIn real estate, capital gains are based not on ...

Some people are just lousy at saving money, and a house is an automatic savings account. You accumulate savings in two ways. Every month, a portion of your payment goes toward the principal. Admittedly, in the early years of the mortgage, this is not much. Over time, however, it accelerates. Seco...

My fellow Realtors, can we stop using corporate jargon in Real Estate?!  As Realtors you're all members of an elite group of business owners where the words you use can truly have meaning.  As Realtors you can actually offer the service you say you offer rather than give it lip service.  You know...

In a nutshell everything I ever wanted to know about marketing I learned from what was once the local TelCo here in Dayton, The Berry Company.  In fact their training program has been duplicated by other fortune 500 companies right here in the Dayton area. The Berry Company sold Yellow Page adver...

I recently had a Realtor say to one of my investors in passing that they should feel guilty about taking advantage of this "buyers market" and the flood of foreclosures.  Now, they didn't say those words exactly but that's kinda what they eluded to.  Are you kidding me?!  (Then they kind of back ...

When you rent a place to live, you can almost certainly expect your rent to increase each year - or even more often. If you get a fixed rate mortgage when you buy a home, you have the same monthly payment amount for thirty years. Even if you get an adjustable rate mortgage, your payment will stay...

With the advent of the web, a lot of agents are offering "cut-rate" commissions. Most of the time, lower commissions are tied to a lower level of service. If all you want is to be listed with the Multiple Listing Service and a sign in the front yard, then a cut-rate commission may be right for yo...

Later, when you drop your price, your house is "old news." You will never be able to recapture that flurry of initial activity you would have had with a realistic price. Your house could take longer to sell.Even if you do successfully sell at an above market price, your buyer will need a mortgage...

So far in the Dayton suburb of Beavercreek there have been over $102 Million in home sales which spent an average of 107 days on market - that's 468 homes sold.  Last year at this exact same time 467 homes had sold in Beavercreek with average time on market of 94 days but again at $102 Million.  ...

The Best InvestmentAs a fairly general rule, homes appreciate about five percent a year. Some years will be more, some less. The figure will vary from neighborhood to neighborhood, and region to region.  Five percent may not seem like that much at first. Stocks (at times) appreciate much more, an...