Posted by Ronald * Starr(in No CA) on April 14, 2003 at 10:07:17:
George F–(NY)------------------
Well, if it is your personal residence, the way of thinking about it is different than if it were an investment property.
Prices of real estate do go up and down. There have been times in the past when the prices of properties in NYC did go down, certainly for commercial properties, and, I suspect, for residential also. However, I don’t see that it makes any difference. Who cares what the prices of the properties are?
The point is that this is a place where you get value through having a place to live and keep you “stuff,” as comedian George Carlin says. Are you happy living there? Is there someplace else you would prefer to live? Answering these questions might start giving you an answer.
If you are inclined to investing, you might consider taking out money with a new loan on the property and use that money to make investments that would return more to you than the interest rate on the loan. You could borrow up to $100,000 or your original purchase price of the property, whichever is lower, and deduct all the interest from the loan on your income taxes, if you idemize your deductions. These days, the interest rates on mortgage loans are very attractive and for a small loan, relative to the value of the property, you would get a good rate.
If you don’t want to invest, that is fine, it is your choice.
Now, if you are not familiar with real estate investing, I would not recommend rushing into doing it. My opinion is that it takes some knowledge to do it right. If you want to learn about real estate investing, I have a post for beginning real estate investors which you can find on this forum by putting “beginners success” into the search function at the top of the page.
Good Investing********Ron Starr****************