It sounds like something for the rich, and it is, but it also applies to the not-so-rich, especially when it comes to real estate ownership.

Individuals that purchased real estate, whether to live in it or as an investment, or both, may see their holdings appreciate over time. As they advance in age, they may realize that the value of their holdings may be subject to taxation when they pass away, or they may not have long term healthcare insurance and they may want to protect their assets in case they need such care and have to seek governmental assistance.

There are a number of ways to achieve these goals depending on what the person’s needs may be, such as placing the assets in a trust, of which there are a variety, transferring the assets to beneficiaries during the person’s lifetime, transferring the home where the person resides to beneficiaries while holding a life estate on the property, or maybe a combination of some of the above.

However, it is important that you obtain quality advice, not only from an attorney, but also from an accountant. All too often, a person covers one angle but omits to consider the consequences of a given course of action. For example, you may achieve protection from Medicaid, but subject the sale of the property to capital gains taxes.

When seeking estate planning advice, you should not box yourself into a single category. Perhaps the way to approach it is to outline what your primary goal is, but have the adviser explore the consequences of the different options available to you, and decide accordingly.

When told that the best way to protect an asset was to transfer it into an irrevocable trust, a lady rejected the option after being told that the trustee would have full ownership and control of the asset. Her reason: she did not trust any of her children (or anyone else) to act as trustees.

You should also revise the form of ownership of your property every so many years. Suppose that you bought your property with another person whom you later married and are still married to. If one of the two owners passes away, the survivor may not necessarily become full owner of the spouse’s half. Suppose that someone bought property with the sole intent to help you qualify for a mortgage and later dies. What was the deceased’s percentage of ownership and who inherits it? What if individuals purchase real estate and later they agree that their percentage of ownership has changed? Did you record any document or a new deed to reflect that change? Situations may arise after purchasing property that would be best addressed by changing the manner or percentage of ownership.

Any estate planning should take into consideration the different tax aspects of a change in ownership, the administration and possession of the property after the transfer, the personal considerations of the parties involved, as in the case of the lady not trusting anyone to be the trustees of her property, and the costs involved in the process.

To summarize: be careful with what you do. Consult one qualified professional and perhaps seek a second opinion. It may cost you a little more upfront, but may benefit you and your beneficiaries in the long run.

The housing supply is tight. Homeowners are not too excited or able to sell, there are fewer cash buyers, as compared to the last couple of years, and higher interest rates for new buyers may make it more difficult to sell in the future. This was more or less the conclusion I extracted from two articles in CNN Money, one to the effect that it was time for sellers to sell and one about warning signs in the housing market, concluding that the market may have reached its top and may commence to stall at any time.

The predictions are not baseless, as the market may have recovered, at least in some areas, to pre-recession levels. However, the pre-recession levels may have been reached on the basis of loose lending standards, but the mortgage qualification requirements for new buyers may make it difficult for buyers to obtain a mortgage now, thus forcing a reduction in prices. For example, if a purchaser has 20% downpayment for a home priced at $650,000.00, s/he may qualify for a 30-year mortgage of $520,000.00 at a 4.25% rate, but may not qualify at a 4.5% rate because the monthly payment is too high for the borrower’s income. At some point that seller may have to reduce the price so that the average buyer for his/her house can qualify for a mortgage at the 4.5% rate. Since lenders are not likely to relax qualification requirements in the near future, counting on that to happen to sell your home may take a long time.

However, the market reacts differently to events, so do the Government and potential buyers. Population shifts, local economic conditions, Government stimulation of mortgage financing, easy for the US Government to do, since it oversees (owns) the two primary funders of home mortgages (Fannie and Freddie), are all factors that are quite unpredictable. The elasticity in prices may have reached its maximum stretch, but may not swing back from this maximum stretch.

In the short term, a possible negative effect on sales may be changes in mortgage disclosure requirements taking effect on August 1st. Lenders have not yet completely integrated changes that took effect on January 1, 2010, and now you’re going to throw new forms at them? What do you think? Your guess is as good as anyone’s. So, take a shot! Although these changes do not change much of the substance behind the January 2010 changes, they do change forms, and implementation of these changes may take lenders a long time. Not sure of what they’re doing may bring delays in processing and closings. Taking a look at the new forms, I believe that they will be better for lenders, as they simplify the process and make these forms friendlier to technological programming. One of the new substantive requirements is that the closing figures will have to be given to borrowers at least three days prior to closing. This will cause delays, as lenders like to approve today and close tomorrow. But the consumer will be better positioned to understand the mortgage they’re getting.

All this being said, maybe the best thing to do for a homeowner, is to sell when ready to sell, for whatever personal reason prompted to do so, and not try to predict where the market may be a few months from now.