Recent Blog Posts
Power of Attorney and Your Estate Plan
Your will is not the only estate planning document you need; in fact, it is the one that you can most easily do without. If someone dies without a will, the court will still distribute the decedent’s property to his or her closest surviving family members according to New York’s laws of intestate succession. … Read More »
The Medical Care Aspects of Your Estate Plan
Estate planning is not just about money. With you, your property is only stuff. Yes, it would be stressful for your family if you never indicated your wishes about who would inherit which assets from you, and your surviving relatives had to guess, and sometimes argue, about what you would have wanted or who… Read More »
What Are Appraisal Management Companies, and Are They Friend or Foe?
Compared to the anticipation that precedes them, real estate closings are anticlimactic affairs. In the most upscale parts of the Five Boroughs, the law office conference rooms where the closings take place are lovely to behold, but if you can afford to buy a real estate property that would entail such an opulent setting… Read More »
Should You Invest in REITs Instead of Buying a Real Estate Property as an Investment?
Of all the lies and false hope associated with the pursuit of passive income and the quest to be your own boss, one of the most insidious and persistent rumors is that owning real estate properties as an investment is easy money. Anyone who has ever rented out a real estate property to tenants… Read More »
House Hacking
In better economic times, people used to daydream about building up enough equity in their homes that they could move to a bigger house and use the old one as a rental property. There were times when becoming a mom-and-pop landlord seemed to be within the reach of almost all homeowners. These days, good… Read More »
Can Listing Beneficiaries on Non-Probate Assets Backfire?
Conventional wisdom holds that the first step in estate planning is to write a will. This way, when your estate goes to probate after you die, the court will distribute your property to your heirs in accordance with your wishes. The next step is to keep as much of your property as possible out… Read More »
Think Twice Before Writing a Real Estate Love Letter
Love is insincere when there is money involved. How many successful businesspeople find themselves the center of attention at networking events, but when they get home, their spouses revile them, their children want nothing to do with them, and their extended family members only contact them when they need money? Almost anyone who has… Read More »
3 Types of Real Estate Properties That Are Old News
The best reason to buy a real estate property is that it is a place where you want to live. It has just enough bedrooms for the members of your household, and it is easy to get from your new home to your workplace and your children’s school. If the long-term financial investment is… Read More »
New York City Faces Lawsuit Over Real Estate Broker Fee Law
The struggles of tenants in New York City are well known; there is a reason that the musical Rent was such a big hit even in parts of Middle America that generally have little sympathy for New York. Of course, being a landlord is not exactly easy, either. At least New York landlords do… Read More »
What Can Go Wrong If You Gift a Real Estate Property to a Family Member?
Now that the new year has been going on long enough that people have started breaking their New Year’s resolutions, everyone is talking about the annual gift tax exclusion. In 2025, the annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000. This means that you can give a whopping $19,000 per recipient to as many recipients as… Read More »