How a Second Home Can Be Your Best Investment

Product Details

Strategies for lifelong, tax-free second home ownership.

This book explains how to invest profitably in a vacation or future retirement home. Featuring success stories from second home buyers and often-overlooked financing options, How a Second Home Can Be Your Best Investment provides dozens of strategies and proven how-to avenues for finding the perfect home that will eventually pay for itself. Real estate experts Tom Kelly and John Tuccillo show readers how to save thousands through exchanges and exemptions and include valuable Web resources for both second home buyers and real estate investors. Readers will discover how to:

• Choose a second home and location with maximum appreciation potential.
• Use a vacation home as a cash cow rental.
• Subdivide a property.
• Minimize the hassle factor of an investment --while maximizing rental income.

Biographical Note

Tom Kelly (Rolling Bay, WA) writes a nationally syndicated real estate column and is a former real estate editor for the Seattle Times.

John Tuccillo (Arlington, VA) was previously chief economist for the National Association of Realtors and gives more than 50 public speeches a year on real estate topics.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments.
• Introduction: It Makes Sen$e: Why Your Second Home Will Pay Off.
• Part One. Our Secret Sauce: Keys to the New Second Home Kingdom.
  • 1. A Lifelong, Tax-Free, Second-Home Ownership Strategy.
  • 2. Linking the Key Ingredients: Tax-Free Exchanges and Exemptions Can Save You Thousands.
  • 3. Balancing Dreams, Affordability, and Investment Potential.
  • 4. Proven How-To Avenues for Finding a Good Deal on Your New Second Home.
  • 5. Can't Afford That Getaway? Eleven Overlooked Financing Options.
• Part Two. Location, Location, Celebration.
  • 6. Reality Check: What to Look for in a Community.
  • 7. Where to Roll the Dice? Second Home Buyers Share Their Stories.
• Part Three. Income-Generating Strategies for the New Second Home.
  • 8. Turning Your Vacation Home into a Cash-Cow Rental.
  • 9. Seven Methods for Marketing and Advertising.
  • 10. Minimizing the Hassle Factor of Your Investment.
• Part Four. Appreciation Strategies for the New Second Home.
  • 11. Choosing a Location That Will Appreciate over Time.
  • 12. Improvements That Will Pay for Themselves over Time.
  • 13. Tips for Subdividing Your Property.
  • 14. Understanding the 75 Million Boomers Who Will Rent or Buy Your Second Home.
• Appendix: Helpful Forms and Web Resources for Second-Home Buyers and Real Estate Investors.
• Index.

Back Cover

Invest in your future with the second home of your dreams.

If you've thought of owning a second home--as a vacation property, a place to retire, or just a smart investment--what are you waiting for? If you can own one home, you can own two! How a Second Home Can Be Your Best Investment offers commonsense guidance and case studies that show ordinary homeowners how to find a second home, finance it, and use it to build long-term wealth.

In this practical, straightforward guide, real estate experts Tom Kelly and John Tuccillo show you how to use the equity in your current home as a down payment on a second home--and how to get other people to pay the mortgage! With a little patience, you'll own a second home that you can live in, sell tax-free, or use as a source of lifelong cash flow. Packed with useful resources, proven strategies, and simple, unbeatable real estate wisdom, you'll have all the tools you need to:

• Calculate what you can afford
• Choose a community
• Find the perfect property
• Get the best financing
• Understand and profit from tax laws
• Manage your second home as a rental, and
• Live richly off your investment!