Selling a house by lottery or Dutch Auction -

 
QUESTION: The real estate market is very slow in New Jersey- I have had my house on the market for over a year and have lowered the price $100k to compensate for the market decrease and would like to know if I could set up a house lottery and try to sell it that way. I understand a woman in Maryland did this and was successful. Any advice??

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david ingram replies:

This is an older question and I have to say i don't have a clue if the New Jersey law would allow you to do have a lottery or do the following.

Ten years ago, when I wanted to get rid of a property in Calgary, Alberta,  Canada, I set up a Dutch Auction.

It was only a $70,000 property ($200,000 today).

What I did was drop the price automatically every day by $150.00.  I also gave absolute authority to the real estate agent to accept the  price when someone met that price but not at any other amount and she was not to present any other offer because it did not matter what price the person wanted to offer, if they waited long enough and if it had not sold before that, they would get their price. 

It went for 40 days without a single offer and then we got four full price offers on the same day.

The agent selected the one with the earliest closing.  Simple as that.  We sold it cleanly  and everyone had a good time.  Every agent in Calgary brought someone to at least look at the property which Ii had bought sight unseen for $38,000 ten years earlier. The Agent had a little trouble with her local Real Estate Board who did not like the idea.

You might give that idea a try.  It is easy to do and sure gets a lot of interest.  the one thing it does is get the market value.

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SUGGESTED PRICE GUIDLELINES - April 26, 2008

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This is not intended to be definitive but in general I am quoting $900 to $3,000 for a dual country tax return.

$900 would be one T4 slip one W2 slip one or two interest slips and you lived in one country only (but were filing both countries) - no self employment or rentals or capital gains - you did not move into or out of the country in this year.
 
$1,200 would be the same with one rental
 
$1,300 would be the same with one business no rental
 
$1,300 would be the minimum with a move in or out of the country. These are complicated because of the back and forth foreign tax credits. - The IRS says a foreign tax credit takes 1 hour and 53 minutes.
 
$1,600 would be the minimum with a rental or two in the country you do not live in or a rental and a business and foreign tax credits  no move in or out

$1,700 would be for two people with income from two countries

$3,000 would be all of the above and you moved in and out of the country.
 
This is just a guideline for US / Canadian returns
 
We will still prepare Canadian only (lives in Canada, no US connection period) with two or three slips and no capital gains, etc. for $200.00 up. However, if you have a stack of 1099, or T3 or T4A or T5 or K1 reporting forms, expect to pay an average of $10.00 each with up to $50.00 for a K1 or T5013 or T5008 or T101 --- Income trusts with amounts in box 42 are an even larger problem and will be more expensive. - i.e. 20 information slips will be at least $350.00
 
With a Rental for $400, two or three rentals for $550 to $700 (i.e. $150 per rental) First year Rental - plus $250.
 
A Business for $400 - Rental and business likely $550 to $700
 
And an American only (lives in the US with no Canadian income or filing period) with about the same things in the same range with a little bit more if there is a state return.
 
Moving in or out of the country or part year earnings in the US will ALWAYS be $900 and up.
 
TDF 90-22.1 forms are $50 for the first and $25.00 each after that when part of a tax return.
 
8891 forms are generally $50.00 to $100.00 each.
 
18 RRSPs would be $900.00 - (maybe amalgamate a couple)
 
Capital gains *sales)  are likely $50.00 for the first and $20.00 each after that.

Catch - up returns for the US where we use the Canadian return as a guide for seven years at a time will be from $150 to $600.00 per year depending upon numbers of bank accounts, RRSP's, existence of rental houses, self employment, etc. Note that these returns tend to be informational rather than taxable.  In fact, if there are children involved, we usually get refunds of $1,000 per child per year for 3 years.  We have done several catch-ups where the client has received as much as $6,000 back for an $1,800 bill and one recently with 6 children is resulting in over $12,000 refund. 

Email and Faxed information is convenient for the sender but very time consuming and hard to keep track of when they come in multiple files.  As of May 1, 2008, we will charge or be charging a surcharge for information that comes in more than two files.  It can take us a valuable hour or more  to try and put together the file when someone sends 10 emails or 15 attachments, etc. We had one return with over 50 faxes and emails for instance. 

This is a guideline not etched in stone.  If you do your own TDF-90 forms, it is to your advantage. However, if we put them in the first year, the computer carries them forward beautifully.
 







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