Don't Your Just Love Fraud?

Nearly 1 million home buyers must repay tax credit


Approximately 950,000 of the nearly 1.8 million Americans who claimed the federal first-time home buyer tax credit on their 2009 tax returns will have to repay the government, according to a report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).
TIGTA's study found that an estimated 4.1 percent of the approximately 1.77 million individuals receiving the tax credit had incorrect purchase dates recorded at the IRS. While this is really too bad and most likely is just a mistake that is going to make the home buyers mad but most likely wasn't entirely their fault, check out the next item:


The report also found that $10.1 million in home buyer credits were claimed by taxpayers who were identified as deceased by the Social Security Administration.

TIGTA recommended that the IRS take steps to correct the errors and IRS officials agreed with the recommendations and stated that they plan to take steps to improve controls.

And now for 1415 Keoncrest Drive just a Minute from BART

I am using a youtuble video for the first time with this post. One of the sellers of this sweet home makes videos for a living and offered to showcase his home so here it.

This spacious home is located just blocks from BART and within easy reach of Monterey Market, Fanny's, The Gourmet Ghetto and the new Trader Joe's. The street is quiet without much traffic but close to these great places and the park.

The house is really sweet and has great separation of spaces. It was added on to at some time so it is a two bedroom home with the addition of an extra bedroom and bath and a converted garage. Need the garage back ? Just open the door and pull up the rug and pull your car right in. One nice thing about this home is that it is ready for its new owners to move right in!

The living room has a fireplace, the dining area has French doors that open out to a private fenced yard. There is a storage shed in the yard which is great for tools, bikes and general clutter. There are 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, plus family room/office, an updated kitchen, and a laundry room,. The house has been freshly painted, hardwood floors have just been refinished, there is new landscaping with irrigation on a timer and there is  new carpeting.

I am waiting for the sun to come out. Sun, please come out. It used to be that by 2 PM on Sundays the sun always came out but with climate change this isn't always true any more. Or maybe it is just bad luck.

Today 1415 Keoncrest, 1633 Portland and 5490 Kales will all be open.

Portland Avenue Revisited

My in-laws lived at 1665 Portland Avenue in Berkeley and my kids virtually grew up there.  Needless to say I spend a lot of time there  thought of the neighborhood as my second home. I also, over the years, sold the homes at 1645 and 1655 and feel well enough connected to say that with its location so close to Solano Avenue, Kensington, El Cerrito and San Pablo it is one of the best in town.

 

1633 Portland Avenue is a fabulous house. The owners who owned it before my clients remodeled it within an inch of its life making it seriously "move-in ready". They enlarged the Master bedroom  and added a second bath, something that is rare in a two bedroom home. They remodeled both baths, adding heated tile floors. The remodeled the kitchen adding hardwood floors and state of the art appliances, a list of which can be found on my website http://www.justsellmyhouse.com/. There is a 40 year roof, a 50 gallon water heater and there are insulated windows that look like they are the original ones. And there is much, much more.

 

There is a lot to see and and a lot to love. I suggest that anyone who wants a low profile, sun- filled home with a happy disposition take a look at this one. It will be open today and tomorrow 9/12, again for brokers and other on Thursday the 16th from 9:30 until noon and then again on Sunday the 19th.

 

Or you cans see it with your Realtor.

Selling Camelia

Every Real Estate agent should have to sell something of her own every so often in order to be able to empathize with her clients. So here I go selling a piece of property that I love dearly. I bought it on a whim with my then husband, Dennis after running into it on tour one cold Thursday in late November of 1996,

It belonged to the estate of a kinetic artist named Sid Gordin. He had apparently lived and worked there for many years, taking a simple West Berkeley Victorian with a yard and some land on the side and filling every inch of the yard with house and studio whenever he had any extra money.

This video shows some of the rooms. When the photos were taken by the able Jenn Kelly of Red Oak Realty, our son Jonah was still using some of the studio to store his sculptures there.

In the future the new owner can use the studio for her or his own purposes; art being one of them.

There is more to be said but I am very sleepy after launching three new properties today: 1415 Keoncrest Drice listed at $595,000,
1633 Portland Avenue listed at $699,000 both in Berkeley, and with Janet Kaplan, 5490 Kales Avenue in Rockridge listed at $995,000. These launchings are the result of two months work . Now we market the hell of them all and then we wait until the week of the 20th to see what the fruits of our labor will bring. I think that they will be rich and juicy but there is no telling.

Camelia, by the way is a fabulous live work property at the corner of 7th Street. It measures 3400 square feet and sits on 4300 square feet. It is a block from Picante and is 104 years old. It has a long driveway with a sexy yellow roll-up door and the potential for a wonderful roof-top garden. Right now the roof-top garden has steps to get up there but needs a serious railing to make it safe.

We have listed Camelia at a very realistic $895,000. The last time that we listed it, in 2008, we had our heads in the sand and had it listed way too high. Now we are my advice and pricing it to sell.

I will talk more about all of these properties when I am not so tired. Stay tuned.