It was a good day. Did some blogging, did some work on one of my rental properties, and spent a lot of time on the phone. I only showed three homes today which is a light day for me. But it seemed to be the day for people seeing my website and calling me with questions.
I had an attorney who helped a client buy a commercial property for 1.5 million. The problem now is that the properties SEV is 4 million. So they wanted to know if they would have to pay the higher tax bill and when could they fight it.
I had to tell them that they really needed to get a hold of a good tax attorney as my expertise was not commercial real estate. I understand how the residential tax process works but that was way out of my league. So I gave him the basics of how Michigans property tax assessment works and told him it didn't matter what his client paid. Michigan SEV is based on many properties values not just your sold price. That was one call.
The other one dragged on and one. The guy already had his plan. I think he wanted to talk it through with somebody. Did you ever have that? Where somebody has made up their mind on what to do and they just want you to listen. This guy had a Birmingham home with a mortgage of over $450,000 and now the house was only worth at the most $250,000.
He's going to walk away from the house because he can't see throwing away $2000 a month on a house that will take over 10 years to come back to the old value. I am seeing more of this. More people making plans to walk away from their underwater houses. They owe too much and many smart educated people are realizing that they are not doing the right thing. They want to do the right financial thing for their family.
Wasting (paying) $2000 a month on a house that you are only making the bank rich may not make sense. It may not be ethical but I too find it hard to imagine paying a payment on a house that is worth $200,000 less than what you owe on it.
I didn't sign any purchase agreements, go to a closing but I did make a difference today. It wasn't revenue making day but I made a difference. I took the time and listened to people that needed a shoulder. People that kind of knew what they wanted to do but just needed a real estate professional to listen to them. It was a good day!
I always feel that you need to help people because at sometime you or somebody in your family are going to need the help. I always look at it that way. How would you want your son or your spouse treated if they needed help if you weren't around. I'm a big believer in what goes around comes around.
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