One of the wackiest ideas for soaring prescription costs I’ve ever heard

Taking out a mortgage to buy your next dose of meds? That’s what two professors offer as a solution to our country’s health care crisis.

I’m all for a market-based solution to soaring med costs. But this has to be one of the wackiest ideas I’ve ever heard.

The way I see it, Wall Street banks, like JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, would bundle HCLs as they did with mortgages for sale to investors. Then when the loans blow up because a higher than expected number of patients die, aren’t cured, or can no longer make their payments, taxpayers would get stuck with the bill.

You can find more details here.  

Congress passes permanent charitable giving incentives

Tax filing time is right around the corner. And Congress has passed the PATH Act making two laws that had expired on January 1, 2015, permanent thereby giving you greater incentives to donate to charities this year and beyond:

·       You are now allowed to donate real property for conservation purposes

·       If you are older than 70½, you many now make charitable donations from your IRA directly to a qualified charity, without being taxed on the distribution amount up to $100,000

Interested in more ideas to reduce your income and estate tax bills while helping your favorite charity? Then download a copy of A Donor’s Guide to Planned Giving. 

Finally, an expansion on landlord rights!

As a landlord, there are three parts of this bill out of Wisconsin that I really like:

*Allow landlords to dispose of or sell property that trespassers leave behind

*Evict tenants who cause damage without repairing or paying for it 

*Prohibit municipalities from inspecting rental property unless someone files a complaint or the inspection is part of a broader program

Another reason NOT to accept cash from tenants

During your career as a landlord, you’ll likely have a few tenants who pay with cash. Although cash is nice, I prefer checks since that gives us both a record of payment.

But there’s another reason that I never gave much thought to … counterfeit bills.

Do you know how to easily spot one? Truth be known, I don’t. And neither did a landlord in Ohio who says she’s in a hard spot because her tenants paid in fake money.

You can read the full story here.

For more ideas on buying and managing rental properties, pick up a copy of What You Must Know BEFORE Becoming a Greedy Landlord. It’s available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon. You can also order it from Barnes & Noble, Booklocker, iTunes, and kobo. 

Will you give more in 2016?

Charitable giving is expected to increase by 4.1 percent this year and 4.3 percent next year, according to researchers at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Those increases would exceed the five-, 10- and 25-year annualized average rates of growth in total giving, and would fall just below the 40-year average growth rate of 4.4 percent.

The main forces driving this growth are: the projected growth in the U.S. stock market, the rise in personal income, the change in demographics, and the increase in net worths for households and nonprofits.   

To find out who is looking to use their wealth to create a social impact and the tools nonprofits are using to engage these donors, click here for a comprehensive overview and a link to the full report. 

And for ideas on how to give to your favorite charities while saving a bundle on income and estate taxes, download a copy of A Donor’s Guide to Planned Giving for just $8.95.  

What tenants want, and how they’ll find it

In many areas of the country demand for rental homes is outpacing supply. But you still need to beat the competition to get the best tenants. So what do today’s tenants want?

A new survey of nearly 120,000 apartment renters offered some answers …

• 94 percent put fast internet service and parking on the top of the list
• 80 percent want swimming pools
• 60 percent prefer to live within walking distance of their jobs 

You can read the full survey here.

If you are an individual landlord with a few rentals, you probably aren’t in a position to add a swimming pool or additional parking. However, the survey did point out something you could easily do …  

The majority of renters (80 percent) visited the apartment community’s or property manager’s web site before they moved in. That should tell you that creating an online presence will give your property a distinct advantage over the landlord who only markets via traditional media, such as classified ads or a sign in the front yard.

It’s not that difficult either ...

You can quickly set up a Facebook page devoted to your rentals. Tumblr and Blogspot are easy to work with, too. Don’t forget Twitter. All of these platforms, and many others, will let you post photos and list the amenities you offer the moment your rental is available. You could include a Google Map of the property, a video of the neighborhood, and much more. And better yet … it’s all free!

For more ideas on buying and managing rental properties, pick up a copy of What You Must Know BEFORE Becoming a Greedy Landlord. It’s available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon. You can also order it from Barnes & Noble, Booklocker, iTunes, and kobo. 

Landlord disgusted with Section 8 housing

An Omaha landlord tried to help by renting to tenants who get assistance from the Omaha Housing Authority, but those tenants left his property a mess and the government won't help clean it up. Now he’s fed up. (You can read the full story here.) You can’t blame him. However, if he had understood the rules of Section 8 housing, as I point out in What You Must Know BEFORE Becoming a Greedy Landlord, he might not have found himself in this pickle. 

The Housing Choice Vouchers Program (Section 8) is the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s primary program to provide housing for Americans who are living in poverty, as well as the elderly and disabled.

People who receive Section 8 vouchers find their own rental housing and use the vouchers they receive from their housing agency to help pay the rent. Basically, the voucher means that the Federal Government will pay a specific amount of the rent directly to the landlord.

Ultimately, it is the voucher holder's decision whether to rent your property. And as the landlord, you would screen the Section 8 voucher holder just as you would any other prospective tenant.

The advantage of renting to these tenants is that HUD guarantees you’ll receive part of the rent. Most Housing Authorities deposit the check directly into your account. And if the tenant can’t pay their portion because of a financial hardship, the government will make up the difference. Still, if the tenant is simply trying to stiff you for their portion of the rent, you’re on your own to collect.

Simply put, just because they are on a government list doesn’t mean they’ll be good tenants. It just means they have Section 8 vouchers.

For more ideas on buying and managing rental properties, pick up a copy of What You Must Know BEFORE Becoming a Greedy Landlord. It’s available in paperback and Kindle formats at Amazon. You can also order it from Barnes & Noble, Booklocker, iTunes, and kobo.