Costa Rica Real Estate and Tourism Growth Inspires Alliance between Re/Max Ocean Surf Realty, Ocean Lyrics Tamarindo Condo Rentals and Get Lost in Costa Rica Tours

Ocean Lyrics Vacation Rentals and tour operator Get Lost in Costa Rica join forces with Re/Max Ocean Surf Realty to offer comprehensive services to buyers and renters of Costa Rica real estate as the property and tourism markets gains steam.

Tamarindo, Costa Rica (PRWEB) October 30, 2012

In anticipation of the resurgence in Costa Rica real estate and tourism, Re/Max Ocean Surf Realty, Ocean Lyrics Vacation Rentals and tour operator Get Lost in Costa Rica decided to join forces. According to the participants, the intent of their strategic alliance is to provide luxury quality, one stop shopping to foreigners buying and traveling in Costa Rica.

Siquirres Limon Costa Rica Lots Land For Sale (Photo credit: International Real Estate Listings)

It turns out the alliance was well-timed. The newly expanded Daniel Oduber Airport (LIR) at Liberia, northern Costa Rica's international gateway to the famous Gold Coast beaches and desirable property markets such as Tamarindo real estate, posted record-breaking numbers this year. The Costa Rican Tourism Board just announced that travelers through Liberia during the last 9 months of 2012 are up 30% over same period in 2011, surpassing the total arrivals for 2011 despite the fact that the busy holiday season is still to come.

Re/Max Ocean Surf, who instigated the alliance, specializes in Tamarindo real estate and is part of a larger Costa Rica real estate group founded by Canadian CPA Chris Simmons.

“The real estate and tourism markets in Costa Rica are definitely getting stronger, but the logistics of managing and renting a property purchased in a foreign country can seem daunting to first time buyers,” says Chris. “We saw the need for partnerships with reputable tour, vacation rental and property management companies to give our clients a higher level of service and peace of mind. Now, when clients ask how they are going to care for their Costa Rica condos or homes, or how they can generate income from their properties when they aren’t occupying them, my answer is simple - talk to our partners at Ocean Lyrics and Get Lost in Costa Rica.”

Ocean Lyrics Vacation Rentals in Tamarindo was formed two years ago by Lisa Simmons, who saw an opportunity in the market. Lisa notes that:

“Vacation rentals are becoming more popular with travelers in general. A 2012 TripAdvisor survey found that 46% of travelers polled are planning a vacation rental stay this year, which is great news for owners of Tamarindo condos and homes. We have a few large Tamarindo vacation rental companies that manage a hundred properties or more, but I saw an opportunity to start a company that takes a more luxury approach. Our company is small and we intend to keep it that way so that every owner and renter receives personalized service.”

The alliance was completed by adding a recognized tour operator that could work with owners and renters of Tamarindo real estate to create custom excursions. Don Grant, the owner of Get Lost in Costa Rica, was the obvious choice. Don was born and raised in Costa Rica, knows where to find all the hot spots and hidden gems, and is completely fluent in English and Spanish. Don, who has achieved top reviews on TripAdvisor, states that:

“We all have an expertise to bring to the table. Re/Max Ocean Surf Realty is the Tamarindo real estate expert. Ocean Lyrics takes exceptional care of vacation rentals and property management, and I’m the specialist in putting together tours that are exactly suited to each client. Whether it’s surfing lessons for families, zip-lining and white water rafting for adventure-seekers, or luxury sailing trips for wedding parties, just let me know what you want to do here in Costa Rica and I can make it happen.”

Re/Max Ocean Surf Realty, Ocean Lyrics Vacation Rentals and Get Lost in Costa Rica are excited about their alliance, which will enable them to provide the highest quality experience to buyers and renters in the expanding Costa Rica real estate and tourism markets.

Taken from: http://www.prweb.com/releases/costarica/realestate/prweb10058472.htm

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Sarasota Real Estate Purchase Opportunities Diminish

Sarasota Bay Real Estate reports current conditions in the real estate market in Sarasota, Florida, show inventory at the lowest point in more than a decade. Prices of Sarasota homes for sale are not only on an upward trend, the inventory of available properties is also on a downswing.

Sarasota, Florida (PRWEB) October 30, 2012

Current conditions in the real estate market in Sarasota, Florida, show inventory at the lowest point in more than a decade. Prices of Sarasota homes for sale are not only on an upward trend, the inventory of available properties is also on a downswing. The most desirable listed residences often have multiple prospective buyers. Finding the property that fits a buyer’s search criteria, in this competitive market environment, may take longer than this season’s buyers anticipate.

 (Photo credit: mogagraham3)

As per the July 2012 market data released, the sales price for single family homes averaged $178,000 during the month, significantly higher than the $167,000 twelve-month running average. This gain can be traced to the diminishing property inventory at both the lower-priced and higher-end market categories. Since the start of this year, listings of available residential properties have been declining steadily. The year-to-date decline, as of this July, was estimated at an 18-percent rate, which is a greater than ten-year low for the Sarasota real estate market.

The current inventory estimate on Sarasota homes for sale is four and a half months. This level is expected to put upward pressure on prices, particularly on the lower-end market segment and on properties in the most desirable locations. Notably, a six-month inventory typically makes for a balanced real estate market as the supply level favors neither buyer nor seller.

Sales in process as of this past July indicated continuing downward pressure on the inventory of Sarasota real estate for sale. Of the 5,052 active listings monitored for the month, there were 2,362 pending contracts. This number of transactions in process is 20 percent higher than the same period last year, and can significantly deplete further the properties available within the marketplace.

Looking ahead, there are firm indications that the real estate industry is moving toward inventory replenishment, and builders and developers spooked by the economic difficulties are gaining more confidence. For the national level, new construction in July 2012 was reported at 21.5 percent over the year earlier level. All told for this year, U.S. housing starts are expected to increase by 20 percent.

The 8,500-acre Lakewood Ranch real estate development, one the largest property developments in Florida, is positioned to contribute toward replenishing the inventory of real estate for sale in the Sarasota area market. A new neighborhood, the Haddington, has recently been added to the Lakewood Ranch Country Club East community. This new development has seventy-six home sites platted for residences having floor plans of between 2,000 and 4,000 square feet. By the fall of 2012, it is expected that the project’s approved builders will complete five new waterfront home models for this new neighborhood.

For the Sarasota downtown area, one project on the horizon is that of Jebco Ventures. This company also developed the posh Vista Bay Point condominium at the Golden Gate Point Peninsula northwest of the city center. It now plans to put up forty-five town-homes in a 2.05-acre site along Ringling Blvd. The blueprint will be for three-story, air-conditioned residences having floor areas of 1,400 to 2,000 square feet at starting prices in the $300s-plus level.

About Sarasota Bay Real Estate

Sarasota Bay Real Estate is a full service real estate brokerage in Sarasota Florida owned by Sarasota real estate broker, Christina Miller, and marketing professional, Roy Hunter. Together they, and their team of well-experienced agents, provide some of the highest quality real estate marketing services for the properties in the company’s inventory. Sellers of Sarasota Florida real estate choose Sarasota Bay Real Estate due to their reputation of going above and beyond expectations when marketing properties located in the Sarasota-Manatee County areas as well as the company’s vast Internet marketing reach. Sarasota Bay Real Estate Internet assets receive more than 1,000 visitors a day and this exposure contributes greatly to a property selling quickly and for the highest price. When property marketing strategies are paramount in sellers listing requirements, Sarasota Bay Real Estate is the clear choice in the Sarasota real estate market.

Contact information for Sarasota Bay Real Estate can be found at: http://sarasotabayrealestate.com

Taken from: http://www.prweb.com/releases/Sarasota-real-estate/market-trends/prweb10071413.htm

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Better Bargains With Foreclosures and Pre-Foreclosures

I’ve taken a cursory look at the possibility of investing in real estate near where I live, with the intent of buying a property for rental. The numbers don’t work well in my favor. I’ve confirmed this with friends experienced with renting their properties in the area; most would not do it again if given the choice. The small potential profit is not worth the extra effort and stress.

To make the numbers work more in the investor’s favor, there’s the possibility of purchasing foreclosed or pre-foreclosed homes. If you can get a significant discount on the price and minimize the out-of-pocket costs required to make the dwelling attractive, there’s a better chance of making a profit. Buying a house in a distressed situation, whether from the buyer in a pre-foreclosed status or from the lender or bank once foreclosed, is not very simple. Auctions are attended by professionals, and the best deals are monopolized by the most experienced investors. It can be difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to break into the elite group of foreclosure investors.

Sign of the times - Foreclosure (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Zillow is making this process a little easier or less expensive for the amateur investor. I’ve been a fan of Zillow for a while. The website, and particularly the iPad application, helps me easily find public information about any property. While driving around neighborhoods in which I might like to buy a house, either for myself or as an investment, I can get an idea about the cost of the home.

The application uses a map and GPS to locate the house of interest, and provides details such as a history of sales prices and Zillow’s own market value estimate of the property. The application also identifies which homes are currently for sale and offers homeowners a chance to advertise their homes to potential buyers without officially putting them on the market. Of course, I don’t actually use the iPad while driving.

Now, the website also indicates when a home is in a pre-foreclosure or pre-market status. This means that the bank has initiated proceedings to foreclose upon the property, but the home is not listed for sale yet. Previously, this information had been difficult to aggregate or has been kept away from the general public by services that require membership fees. Zillow’s new feature brings a wider inventory of potentially better deals to more investors for free.

That doesn’t mean, however, that it’s going to be any easier for amateur investors — those without connections in the foreclosure real estate market in their location — to get better deals. Professional investors find pre-foreclosure deals within a day or two of the public filing, and with cash in hand and experience making deals, are often able to make the most out of the information they have. If Zillow’s information is as slow as two days, the best deals might no longer be available. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth pursuing, because the deals one might find with Zillow might still be better than the deals one might find if you wait for a foreclosure auction.

Zillow’s new development is bad news for companies who profit by charging membership fees to access an aggregation of public information. When a competitor comes in and offers customers the same information for free, the company that charges its customers must come up with a new business model fast or explain how their paid service is worth the price compared to the free service.

To feature foreclosure and pre-foreclosure listings, Zillow has introduced a foreclosure center, making it simple to search just for these deals without other listings cluttering the screen. A search in my ZIP code reveals a surprising number of pre-foreclosure properties within a mile. I don’t have to walk very far to see fifteen homes Zillow has marked as pre-foreclosure.

Without walking around to see these homes, the pricing looks favorable. The estimated foreclosure prices seem to be 15 to 20 percent below Zillow’s estimated market value for these homes, putting these properties in the “good investment” range based on that information alone. Of course, if these properties need a significant amount of work, the value as a potential investment decreases.

By Luke Landes

Taken from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2012/10/30/better-bargains-with-foreclosures-and-pre-foreclosures/

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Washington Area Real Estate Agents Write Book on Buying and Selling A Home

A home is the biggest purchase most of us will make in our lives. Yet, so many people go into it not fully understanding how the process works, and that ignorance can wind up costing a buyer or a seller.

These days, buying and selling real estate is even more complex. The proliferation of real estate Web sites has helped the buyer and seller become more educated, but all that additional information can be overwhelming.

After more than a decade selling homes in the Washington area, Long and Foster real estate agents Hans and Steve Wydler came to realize how little their clients really knew about a system that too often takes advantage of them.The Ivy League educated brothers decided it was time that somebody pulled back the curtain and showed the world what was behind real estate’s version of the Wizard of Oz.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In their book, “Inside the Sell: Top Agents Reveal Unspoken Secrets and Dangers of Buying and Selling Your Home,” the Wydlers take readers behind the scenes of real estate transactions and expose the double-dealing that can occur if a buyer or seller is not careful.

“There’s a tangled web of conflicting incentives, institutional laziness and bad habits that get repeated year after year, transaction after transaction, without correction,” they write in the book.

For example, a broker may provide a financial incentive to its agents to sell listings in-house. If a buyer purchases a property listed by one of the broker’s agents, the buyer agent receives more money than if the buyer purchases a property listed by another brokerage. As a result, the buyer agent is more motivated to show its broker’s listings than those outside the brokerage.

A buyer unaware of this arrangement may miss out on the best property for him because his agent limited the search to mostly properties listed by the brokerage.

As the Wydler brothers detail in their book, that is not the only case where buyer or seller can be taken advantage of by a system that at times puts real estate agents at odds with their clients’ best interests.

“When you get into the factory and see how the sausage is made, you realize there’s a lot of stuff that is not necessarily in the consumer’s best interest,” Steve Wydler said in an interview.

Added Hans Wydler: “The vast majority of agents have their clients’ interests at heart, but sometimes they just buy into a system that was set up for them.”

Given the many flaws within the system, you may wonder why you even need a real estate agent to buy or sell your home, especially with the many online do-it-yourself options out there. Not surprisingly, the brothers strongly advocate using a real estate agent. They contend a buyer or seller really needs someone who can shepherd him through the process.

“The perception is [all a real estate agent does is] open up some doors and you get a big commission check,” Hans Wydler said. “Frankly, helping people find a home is probably 10 percent of what we do. It’s such a small percentage of being an effective real estate agent and being a strong advocate for your client.”

There are many books out there on how to buy or sell a house, with most of them geared toward purchasing rather than marketing a home. While the Wydler brothers’ book will be helpful to both buyers and sellers, those looking to sell their home likely will find it especially useful — particularly the chapter on pricing a home. They urge sellers to stop calling their home a home and start viewing it as a real estate investment.

Revealing some of the industry’s lesser-known practices has the potential to cause a negative reaction from the Wydlers’ fellow real estate agents. But to date, the response to the book has been positive.

“We had some concerns about that,” Steve Wydler said. “But so far all the agents who’ve read it told me they’ve loved it.”

Writing the book turned out to be more challenging than the first-time authors anticipated. In the end, they hope their readers will come away with a better understanding of and appreciation for the work that real estate agents do.

“The big picture is we want to level the playing field,” Steve Wydler said. “Two, we want people to realize the agent has a really important value in the process. They should vet their agents to make sure they are finding someone who they feel is going to do the things we talk about in the book to help them maximize their return.”

By Kathy Orton

Taken from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/where-we-live/post/washington-area-real-estate-agents-write-book-on-buying-and-selling-a-home/2012/10/29/9f6a31e2-21f5-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_blog.html

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5 Reasons You Should Invest in Los Angeles Real Estate

If living the life of glamor is not enough for home buyers, check out these 5 reasons home buyers should invest in Los Angeles real estate now! Brought to you by Red Blue Realty.

Los Angeles, Ca (PRWEB) October 29, 2012

Everyone loves to be a part of the community shared by celebrities and stars and if prospective home buyers are considering buying a property, the best thing to do is to invest in Los Angeles Real Estate and live in the star studded communities. There are many beautiful properties in the heart of downtown as well as suburbs that promise luxurious lifestyle to the residences. For those who are toying with the idea of buying Los Angeles real estate, this is the best time to lock up available capital in Los Angeles real estate.

(Photo credit: nancyarora2020)

Low Interest Rate

Given the low interest rates, anyone who invests in property now, will reap the benefits in future as the interest rates are soon going to increase. If a home buyer fails to make a decision now, they may have to pay a heavy price down the line for the same property, due to increased interest rate.

Predicted Increase in Inflation

It is predicted that due to the inflationary conditions, the property rates in many places including Los Angeles are going to shoot up. This increase may not be the direct result of the appreciation in the value of the property, but the price of Los Angeles real estate is definitely going to go northwards in the long run. Therefore, for investors as well as residential home buyers, this is the most advantageous moment to really reap the benefits. Los Angeles real estate is the perfect place if home buyers want to live in the city of glamor and want to enhance their lifestyle.

Premium Location Appreciates Faster

The main factor that should be considered before locking up any capital in real estate is the location. Los Angeles Real Estate is one of the most premium places to live in the United States. If a property is located at the heart of the city or near shopping centers, the value of the real estate Los Angeles is going to appreciate faster than the properties that are situated in faraway suburbs. A great location is the preferred choice of tenants as well, therefore, home buyers can buy the property and lease it to someone for short term as well as long term.

Proximity to Schools

If a home buyer is planning to stay with family and children, then it is essential that they choose the property that is close to the best schools both public or private, as this will help when dropping and picking up kids without any hassles. Proximity to schools is one major advantage that helps in increasing the value of the property. There are many good school districts in the city of Los Angeles.

Town Homes vs. Condos

If a home buyer prefers to lead a stylish lifestyle and wants to minimize the distance between the workplace and home, the best thing is to invest in elegant and luxurious condos that are located in the heart of downtown and are hardly a mile away from many big offices. These condos offer state-of-art facilities like gym as well as spa. If this is the home buyers style, investing in a condo may be the perfect choice. However, if a homeowner prefers to live a quiet life in a serene community, investing in town homes or single-family residences is the best option as Los Angeles offers some of the best homes for sale.

For those looking to purchase Los Angeles real estate -- or for those who just want read more articles like this -- check out Red Blue Realty today.

Website: RedBlueRealty.com
Email: Contact(at)redbluerealty(dot)com
Phone Number: 1-(855) 66-RBREALTY or 1-(855) 667-2732

Taken from: http://www.prweb.com/releases/Los-Angeles-Real-Estate/los-angeles-homes-forsale/prweb10066931.htm

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Building A Real Estate Career

Schulich School of Business and a 2012 winner of a $10,000 scholarship from Commercial Real Estate Women, Amanda Acchione dreams of one day being an entrepreneur in the real estate sector. “I have sticky notes, which have the words ‘aha moment’ at the top and then at the bottom the words ‘not so much,’ ” she said. “I am a sticky note person. I use them a lot for things like thinking about the business I’d build. There are many aha moments that later end up with me checking off the ‘not so much box.’ But I try to focus on the good ideas and make the ones that don’t work better.”

At 21 years old, Ms. Acchione has already checked off the box of having tried out entrepreneurship in real estate. Last year, while taking a real estate finance course at Schulich, she ventured into land development, purchasing property in Markham with her savings, hiring a team to design and build a house, and then selling it.

The opportunities for young people to prepare themselves for the development business have never been better

Schulich School of Business (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“I used to go to school and learn about processes and things like budgeting,” she said, “but I never thought I would use it all. But entrepreneurship forces you to apply what you learn in school because you are accountable to yourself. And you are driving your own success,” said Ms. Acchione, who has worked for the past three years at Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust (CAPREIT) in Toronto.

“Young people today have significantly more opportunities to prepare themselves for a real estate development career than we would have had over 30 years ago when I got out of school,” said Frank Giannone, president of FRAM Building Group, a developer of award-winning residential and mixed-use communities across Canada and the United States. “A great example is the Schulich program. Things like that didn’t exist back then. The opportunities for young people to prepare themselves for the development business have never been better.”

That said, Mr. Giannone, whose daughter Christina is also studying real estate at Schulich, has some advice for aspiring young entrepreneurs. First, he said, is to learn the skill set needed to deal with the politics and bureaucracy of local governments when it comes to zoning and permits.

“If you’re starting from scratch, setting up your own business when you get out of school, you have to be a very patient, diligent person,” he said, adding that the other route is to gain the skill set and experience first by working with an established company.

“Marketing — they need to do their homework, not just to rely on reports. You can buy the reports but you also have to be doing it yourself,” he said. “They still have to do what I did when I started, which was to spend the weekend visiting sales offices and looking to see if what I was hearing from a report was accurate or if there was something else happening. Also, spend a lot of time reading about trends of how people are going to want to live in the future so you can get an edge and be ahead of the curve.”

He also advises budding entrepreneurs to pay a lot of attention to finding and developing a strong relationship with a good builder. “Because at the end of the day, you have to deliver a quality product,” he said.

“Our business is very capital intensive, so you have to either have your own money or have a partner who really believes in you. It’s a risky business, but you if you do the right things to reduce the risks, it can be a very good business,” Mr. Giannone said.

For now, Ms. Acchione is holding off on her land development venture because she worries the housing market might be heading the way the U.S. market did in 2008 and she wants to focus on finishing her studies.

By Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

Taken from: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/10/29/building-a-real-estate-career/

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7 Reasons to Rollover Your 401(k) After Retirement

After retirement, you need to decide whether you should roll over your 401(k) to an IRA. Once you are no longer working at a company, it’s often a good idea to move your money to a retirement account that is not tied to your former employer. Here are seven reasons to rollover your 401(k) to an IRA:

Cashing out is a bad idea. On each withdrawal you’ll have to pay tax (marginal rate) on the lump sum and a 10 percent penalty if you’re under age 59 1/2. It’s better to take distributions over many years to minimize the tax. Delaying withdrawals as long as you can also gives your retirement fund more time to grow.

retirement (Photo credit: 401(K) 2012)

Lower fees. Your 401(k) plan has administrative fees which will cut into your investment returns over the years. If you roll your money over to an IRA, you may be able to avoid paying administrative costs, especially if you don’t sign up for investment management at a brokerage. Also, some 401(k) plans will charge an extra maintenance fee once you are no longer an employee. Check with your company to see if this fee applies to your plan.

401(k) changes. Your 401(k) investment choices, trustees, and fees can all change at any time. If you don’t work there, you might not get the latest information as quickly as those who do. When these big changes are scheduled to occur, the employer usually holds information sessions to communicate the changes. If you don’t work there, these in-person sessions may not be available to you. If you don’t pay close attention to your 401(k) statements, you might not even know about the changes until after they occur.

More control. Most 401(k) plans have restrictions. My previous employer will not let me invest the employer contribution portion of my 401(k) account. This portion is invested in a “global diversified” investment that has no ticker. I’m not willing to live with these restrictions once I’m no longer an employee. I want total control of my investments, and that’s why I’m in the process of rolling over my 401(k).

Employer stock. It’s hard to believe, but many employees still have a large portion of their 401(k) invested in their employer’s stock. Some companies invest their employer contribution straight into company stock. This is a bad idea because there are too many eggs in that basket. If your employer goes out of business, you could lose not only your job, but also your retirement savings. Read up on Enron if you think investing in your employer’s stock is a good idea.

Better investment choices. Most 401(k) plans have very limited investment choices. Unfortunately, many of these funds are of the high fee and high expense ratio variety. If you roll your money over to an IRA, then you can invest in anything you want to. Some investors might want to invest in individual stocks, and that’s easy to do in an IRA. I’m more partial to low-fee Vanguard funds, and I can pick any of them in an IRA.

Consolidate and simplify. Workers who frequently change jobs can end up with several different 401(k) accounts if they don’t roll them over into an IRA. It’s much easier to check on your investments if they are all in one IRA instead of many 401(k)s. A single IRA also makes it much easier to revamp your investments. You will be surprised at how much in fees you are paying as your 401(k) balance grows. I found out I paid $1,754.91 per year in fees, and that’s not acceptable.

There are many things to deal with when you leave your job or career, but don’t forget about your retirement account. This could be your largest investment if you work with one employer for a long time.

Joe Udo is planning an exit strategy from his corporate job by reducing expenses and increasing passive income. He blogs about his journey to early retirement at Retire by 40.

By Joe Udo

Taken from: http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/On-Retirement/2012/10/25/7-reasons-to-rollover-your-401k-after-retirement

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IXACT Contact’s Facebook Sweepstakes Gives Participants the Opportunity to Win Big

IXACT Contact Solutions Inc., North America’s foremost real estate contact management and email marketing system, launches an exciting sweepstakes on Facebook, giving participants the opportunity to win both six months free of IXACT Contact and an Apple TV.

Toronto, Ontario (PRWEB) October 29, 2012

IXACT Contact has a reputation for rewarding its Facebook fans and the company’s latest sweepstakes is no exception. IXACT Contact’s Facebook fans can enter into yet another sweepstakes (the company ran one in August) to win six months free of the real estate contact management system. And, if they get two other REALTORS® to enter, they have the opportunity to win a coveted Apple TV.

“We want Realtors to try out IXACT Contact and experience firsthand how great our real estate contact management system is in helping them organize their business and keep in touch with their sphere of influence (SOI),” said Rich Gaasenbeek, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, IXACT Contact. “That’s why we decided to run this sweepstakes on our Facebook page.”

IXACT Contact recently released some exciting new enhancements to its real estate contact management system, such as a monthly real estate newsletter and powerful real estate transaction management capabilities. The new transaction management features include the ability for agents to store documents relating to a transaction as well as manage their showings and third parties.

In addition to IXACT Contact’s current sweepstakes, the company has added an innovative tab to its Facebook page that will showcase its most popular posts, including a very funny video where Ellen DeGeneres discusses “peculiar” real estate ads. This tab will be on the page for a limited time only.

To enter the sweepstakes and view IXACT Contact’s showcase tab, participants can go to and “like” IXACT Contact’s Facebook page by clicking here. The sweepstakes will run for a very limited time and the winner will be chosen at random on Monday November 26th, 2012.

About IXACT Contact Solutions Inc.
IXACT Contact® is an easy-to-use web-based real estate CRM that helps REALTORS® build lasting relationships with past clients, hot prospects and important referral sources. IXACT Contact makes it easy to maintain full contact profiles and to stay in touch with clients in a way that’s personalized, relevant and timely. With IXACT Contact, real estate agents can convert more leads into listings and attract more referrals and repeat business. Real estate sales and real estate prospecting become easy. Real estate marketing is also a snap with IXACT Contact’s personalized mass email, drip marketing, real estate newsletter, and Email Campaign Reporting features. The Active Business side of the system helps REALTORS® keep control of transactions by managing all the to-do’s associated with listings and buyers. Sign up for a free five week trial today at http://www.ixactcontact.com.

Taken from: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/10/prweb10063159.htm

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Inheriting a Retirement Account? Follow the Rules or You'll Regret It

With Social Security in crisis and workers struggling to build up any sort of nest egg for their retirement years, you might figure that the odds of anyone having money left in their retirement accounts to leave to their loved ones would be just about zero.

But because many retirees leave their IRAs and 401(k)s untouched as long as possible to avoid paying unnecessary taxes, you might someday face the bittersweet experience of inheriting a retirement account.

If that happens to you, you'll need to know how to avoid big pitfalls that could end up with the IRS taking a huge chunk of that cash. Here are some quick tips that can help you make it through all the rules and regulations governing retirement accounts.

Retirement Center, Hod Hasharon 1 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Being Married Matters

The first thing you need to do is to look at the named beneficiaries for the retirement account in question. Whether you're a sibling, child, grandchild, or family friend to the person who passed away, you'll be treated similarly to any other beneficiary.

But a surviving spouse has some additional options that no other beneficiary has. Through what's known as a spousal rollover, a surviving spouse can move the retirement account money into an IRA in the spouse's own name. From then on, the inherited IRA assets are treated in exactly the same way as the surviving spouse's other retirement assets, regardless of the fact that they originally came from the deceased spouse's earnings. In determining things like early-withdrawal penalties and required minimum distributions, the surviving spouse's age will be what matters going forward.

Options for Everyone Else

Everyone except the surviving spouse has fewer options available to them, but they do have a few choices to make. The default rule is that beneficiaries must take out the entire balance of an inherited IRA by the end of the fifth year following the death of the original IRA account holder.

The problem with the five-year rule is that it can leave you with substantial tax liability. Remember, with a traditional IRA or 401(k), any money that you withdraw will be added to your taxable income for the year you receive it. But another option available to most beneficiaries lets you stretch out distributions over a longer period.

To use what's known as a Stretch IRA, you need to withdraw a certain amount of money from the inherited IRA every year, beginning with the year following the death of the original account holder. The amount is recalculated each year, based on IRS tables that help you figure your life expectancy and the value of the retirement account at the beginning of the year. By using this method, you'll have the flexibility to take distributions from the inherited retirement account over anywhere from 20 years for someone who's 65 years old to 40 years or more for someone in their early 40s or younger.

Keep in mind that even if you use the Stretch IRA method, you can always take more money out of your inherited IRA than the calculated amount. The calculations only specify the minimum withdrawal each year.

Get the Details Right

Perhaps the trickiest part of inheriting a retirement account is getting your financial institution to get the necessary paperwork done. For a spousal rollover, nothing could be simpler, as you'll simply end up with a new IRA in your own name without necessarily any reflection that it came from the deceased spouse.

For everyone else, though, you must be sure that you keep your inherited IRA money separate from your own personal retirement accounts. In fact, the account name for the inherited IRA should include the name of the original account holder and reflect the inherited nature of the account. For instance, your account might be titled something like "IRA for benefit of John Doe as beneficiary of Jane Doe." Because brokers don't handle these transactions all that frequently, make sure to follow up to ensure that they've set things up correctly.

It's never easy handling money matters after the death of a loved one. But by making sure you follow the IRS rules governing inherited retirement accounts, you'll avoid seeing hard-earned money go to the tax man rather than family. That's a legacy anyone would be proud of.

By Dan Caplinger

Taken from: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/10/23/inheriting-retirement-account-IRA-401k-rules-tips-advice/

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