Thanks Scott, it must have been my military colleagues' rented
properties in other parts of the US. I might venture an opinion,
though, that many of the clapboard houses in Tampa, down towards the
base at MacDill, were not worth keeping for too long; perhaps they were
expecting the worst of the hurricane season ...
Chris
On 27 Aug 2004, at 18:19, Scott Gomez wrote:
>
> Most places here in the USA, houses appreciate. In parts of California
> it's not unusual to have situations where they double in value in only
> 12 months due to one thing or another... And there are situations here
> where people pay significant sums to buy a house in order to *tear it
> down* because they wanted the lot and are going to build new. When you
> figure that the average new single-family detached home here in SoCal
> goes for $225,000 and up in outlying areas, and much, much more than
> that in so-called "desirable" areas, it can make sense to pay a couple
> of hundred thousand to buy and tear down an existing older place and
> build a new one that will instantly be worth over half a million.
>
> Tax depreciation of a house here in the USA is most often tied to it
> being used as a rental, I would think. In other words, one that is
> *not*
> owner-occupied. Otherwise, if one lives in a house that appreciates
> significantly, there can be a significant tax bite at sale time,
> depending how one uses the money realized.
>
> There can be lots of other complicated tax crap regarding houses, here,
> too.
<|_:-)_|>
C M I Barker
Cambridgeshire, Great Britain.
+44 (0)7092 251126
ftog at threeshoes.co.uk
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