DEAR BOB: I own and live in a nice condo in what I thought was a well-managed association of 24 condo owners. But when our longtime treasurer, a retired CPA, suddenly died, we discovered we are practically broke. He was a nice old man who everybody loved. At his funeral, which almost all the condo association members attended, he was highly revered, as if he was almost God. But a few weeks later, after our condo board of directors appointed a new treasurer, we discovered the ugly facts.  more...

DEAR BOB: We had a horrible experience with our listing agent. She lied to us about the status of our home sale after we thought we had a solid sale. Long story short, our buyer was not pre-approved by an actual lender (he had only a worthless pre-qualification by a mortgage broker), as our listing agent misrepresented to us. This went on and on for four months before we realized our agent was lying to us and the buyer couldn't financially buy our home. After the listing expired, we sold our home to a friend and saved the sales commission.  more...

Now that we understand why tax-deferred exchanges are so advantageous and the motivations for using them, let's discuss the simple tax-deferred-exchange concept. An important detail to know is that a tax-deferred exchange is viewed as one continuous real estate investment, rather than a taxable sale followed by a reinvestment.  more...