How to avoid capital gains tax on house sale

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m single and bought a house for 800k a few years ago in a neighborhood that seems to be increasing in popularity. If it goes up to 1.2 million, then I already exceed the 250k exclusion. If and when I sell, my LT partner and I plan to move to a lower COL area where houses costing 400k are bigger and fancier than what we want, and we plan to buy together with another 200k or proceeds from a previous sale on their home.
I’m not sure there will be enough house there for me to roll it all into.
What should my strategy be? We are considering marriage but planned to wait until my kids (prev relationship) are through college.

I have put some money into updates (hardwood floors, newer energy efficient fancy water heater, etc) but not enough to really affect the basis all that much.

The capital gains on home sales really bothers me because it feels like a tax on savings as home prices rise along with COL.

If I had $250,000 bank I’d get taxed on the interest.

This is, frankly, also crazy, and I’m surprised more people don’t advocate for a change in this regard. You’re essentially just being taxed on inflation.

Right now, we supposedly have “high interest rates.” But the interest on cash is around 4.2%. Given that most middle-class people pay a marginal tax rate of at least 30% (say, 22% federal and 8% MD), the after-tax rate on cash is 2.9%. For comparison, the most recent CPI figure showed a 2.8% increase YoY.

When interest rates drop even slightly, the after-tax return on cash will be below the inflation level. We should not be taxed “gains” that are simply inflation.

Interest is income and income is taxed. Profit off a home sale is income and is also taxed, albeit after the huge tax break that we’re discussing here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once you include the costs of buying and selling the house you probably won’t have much capital gains. Maybe $50k, so you’d owe $5k? Just pay it and don’t tie together your asset until you’re ready.

mostly the costs of selling the home. but still, OP, it breaks down like this:

sale price: 1.2million
acquisition cost: 800k
improvements: 40k
sale prep+brokerage +closing costs+ transfer/recording tax: 90k

profit: 270k
taxable profit: $20k

so even remaining unmarried, you'd only owe 15% tax on that 20k taxable profit. You're worrying about a potential $3k in taxes sometime in the future, when all the rules could possibly change tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

Marrying the long term partner who you plan to marry anyway is the obvious solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m single and bought a house for 800k a few years ago in a neighborhood that seems to be increasing in popularity. If it goes up to 1.2 million, then I already exceed the 250k exclusion. If and when I sell, my LT partner and I plan to move to a lower COL area where houses costing 400k are bigger and fancier than what we want, and we plan to buy together with another 200k or proceeds from a previous sale on their home.
I’m not sure there will be enough house there for me to roll it all into.
What should my strategy be? We are considering marriage but planned to wait until my kids (prev relationship) are through college.

I have put some money into updates (hardwood floors, newer energy efficient fancy water heater, etc) but not enough to really affect the basis all that much.

The capital gains on home sales really bothers me because it feels like a tax on savings as home prices rise along with COL.

If I had $250,000 bank I’d get taxed on the interest.

+1000

Owning a home is an Investment. And just like other investments, you are taxed on gains. Thankfully, you are not taxed until you actually sell. It's just another tax. Where I live, we also pay a transfer fee/tax of almost 2%. No way around it and that is on the total sales price, not just your gains. Just another cost of selling, along with realtor fees.

[Anonymous]

Have you made *any* improvements? Those come off the top of the profit first, which lowers your taxable burden. New windows, roofing, patio, anything -- it all counts to reducing the taxable income.

Also as others have mentioned the "rolling into a new property" is irrelevant. You owe the tax regardless of what you buy. Many people get this confused with a 1031 exchange, which is for investment properties and not primary residences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pay the tax. If market tanks, you can pick up great stocks 50-60% off. Once it turns around, you will double your money. Bull markets last under a year.
I argued with several family members about selling two properties. They wanted top dollar while I wanted the money out. Meanwhile, my stocks and crypto did 8x and 4x in 2023-2024.
They ended up selling for what I had told them the home was worth a year later. Still waiting for the cash. Good that market crashing again.

If you want to speculate on the market, you can get a loan.

It's great for you thay you made money speculating, but every dollar you made came from someone who tried the same thing but lost.

What a dumb response.

Not really. It’s safer to have an asset like real property in this unpredictable market. Stocks are wildly overpriced and seemingly unhitched from fundamentals. It’s basically gambling and seeing which CEO plays the political game best. Could you machine having your life savings dependent on the personality whims of Musk or Zuck? No thank you. A house can be rented to earn income. I can always move back in if so need to etc.

Real estate is overpriced now and will be increasingly illiquid in the near future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pay the tax. If market tanks, you can pick up great stocks 50-60% off. Once it turns around, you will double your money. Bull markets last under a year.
I argued with several family members about selling two properties. They wanted top dollar while I wanted the money out. Meanwhile, my stocks and crypto did 8x and 4x in 2023-2024.
They ended up selling for what I had told them the home was worth a year later. Still waiting for the cash. Good that market crashing again.

If you want to speculate on the market, you can get a loan.

It's great for you thay you made money speculating, but every dollar you made came from someone who tried the same thing but lost.

What a dumb response.

Not really. It’s safer to have an asset like real property in this unpredictable market. Stocks are wildly overpriced and seemingly unhitched from fundamentals. It’s basically gambling and seeing which CEO plays the political game best. Could you machine having your life savings dependent on the personality whims of Musk or Zuck? No thank you. A house can be rented to earn income. I can always move back in if so need to etc.

Real estate is overpriced now and will be increasingly illiquid in the near future.

And ask the folks in LA whose houses burned down and can't afford to rebuild how safe real estate is as an investment.