How is Real Estate treated when considering Child's Eligibility for Financial Aid?

How is Real Estate treated when considering Child's Eligibility for Financial Aid?

If you have a child entering or in college, then this is an important question.

From the FinAid SmartStudent Guide(TM)to Financial Aid "Real estate is normally treated as an investment asset, not a business asset, unless it is part of a formally recognized business that provides services beyond utilities and trash collection, such as maid service. However, incorporating a business and transferring the real estate to the business bypasses this restriction, since a corporation is a separate legal entity. When combined with the small business exclusion, this can cause real estate to change from being reported as an investment asset to being entirely excluded from assets."

Real estate is a good investment. It's better to make money than lose money. Obviously, it doesn't make sense to really lose money just for the sake of getting more financial aid. However, what you can legally do is consider the timing and the mix of you cash, assets, etc and whose name they are under. In general it's better if you the parent and/or the grandparent owns the assets rather than your child. Delay putting assets in your childs name until late in their junior year in college after you've filed your last application for financial aid.

Also, spend your cash, don't save it. Don't buy anything you wouldn't buy, but if it's something you eventually need to buy and/or pay, then do it during the student financial aid years. If your car is getting old, then buy it now rather than waiting until it's really old. If you have lots of cash, should you purposely spend it by buying investment property? Yes, if it's a good investment property. No, if it's not a good investment property. If you do buy investment property, then consider the strategy I mentioned earlier that can cause real estate to change from being reported as an investment asset to being entirely excluded from assets for financial aid purposes.

Disclaimer: This post is just to give you some ideas. I am a REALTOR not a lawyer. Please consult legal counsel for professional legal advice.

Foursquare for Real Estate?

What is Foursquare? In the founders' own words “foursquare is a cross between (1) a friend-finder, (2) a social city-guide and (3) a game that rewards you for doing interesting things.
We aim to build things to not only help you keep up with the places your friends go, but that encourage you to discover new places and challenge you to explore your neighborhood in new ways.”

Basically, Foursquare is a GPS-enabled game. When you arrive at a business, you "check in". By checking in, you:
1. See if any of your connected friends are at or near the same location
2. Discover and/or share tips about the business(es) at that location
3. Earn points toward becoming virtual "Mayor".

Foursquare could provide some relevant feedback if you are a location owner. At the very least, you can follow who has been checking into your establishment. Better yet, if the customers leave feedback, you know what good features you can promote and what areas of improvement you need to work on. Since most check-ins are merely check-ins, you need to make giving feedback fun.

Can Foursquare be used for real estate? Here are some possibilities:

1. Add your listings to Foursquare as a tracking and feedback mechanism. Encourage your visitors to “check in” and leave their feedback. This is another way to get worthwhile information to your seller.

2. Track attendance at office tours, caravans or meetings.

3. Work to become Mayor of a particular neighborhood. This could be of some value on a listing presentation. As Mayor, you advertise yourself as the area expert.

Creative Realtors can distinguish themselves by finding fun, engaging and professional ways to incorporate Foursquare into their business plan.