Central Oregon Real Estate Info

Oregon is going to see a few changes to the way Real Estate sales, contracts and proceeds are handled as we begin 2008. Out of state sellers will have a new rule that they and their agents will need to be very well educated on.

I have just started my own research to best protect my sellers and educate them so they are prepared for the new changes.

The Oregon Legislature approved a new bill - HB 2592 - this is a huge change. Upon the sale or lease of a property - there will or can be a 4% of the sales price or 10% of the gain deduction from the seller's proceeds. This deduction will be to pay Oregon Income Tax. It will be held in a trust account and sent to the State of Oregon Revenue Department.

My Questions have been;

Are there exceptions to this rule - and the answer is yes -

1. If the sales price is under $100,000
2. If the buyer obtains the property through foreclosure
3. If the seller is a resident of the State of Oregon
4. If the seller is a corporation, with a permanent place of business in Oregon
5. If you will not owe tax under ORS chapter 316, 317or 38 for the tax year because the conveyance is non-taxable with an exchange.

Obviously these changes can cause a lot of confusion if you are not prepared - knowing what to expect takes the frustration out of the sale of your home.

As always your comments and questions are appreciated.

Backing up your computer, yesterday I wrote a quick post to remind all of you how important it can be and how it saved my bacon with my laptop. Many of you have asked what I use and the cost of my system, so here goes.

Many of us remember the old tape driven back ups that we set up to back up at night and with the memory we currently use with larger photos, bigger files and more details these tape drives are pretty much non-existent today.

The tapes of yesteryear were expensive and not as reliable or easy to restore as one would think. I remember having to restore a time or two and oh my, what a pain. Then some of us got CD burners oh that was a great system - how many CDs does it take to back up 100GB hard drive that is 80% full - someone else out there can do the math, my answer is.... Way too many and who has the time?

Today we have a lot of options, from online services that you pay a small monthly fee to actual external hard drives. Personally I use a system by Western Digital called "My Book" it is the size of a book and resembles a book - it connects to my computers with a USB cord or a firewire cord. They do have a fancier option which if I ever need a larger system I will upgrade to that is wireless and works on your wireless network.

I use the My Book; the first one I purchased is a 320 GB system, the cost of this is $99 to $150 depending on where you purchase it. I bought mine at Best Buy - this link will take you to a few of the choices they have. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat77500050000&type=category

I was not sure I would find the system to work well for me so I started small, if I were to be in the market today I would most likely buy the wireless one only because I have 3 computers to back up. If you are working with one computer or even two you may find that it is not a necessity to spend more than the $99.

One of the features I like about the book - is you can use it as an extra hard drive. I can load files on it and when it is connected to the computer you can access the files and save them on the book...

In my previous post several people mentioned the online backup services. I have never used one, and would struggle to do so because of the speed of our internet connections in Central Oregon. I have DSL which runs about the speed of a 56k modem, uploading all the photos I have would take an eternity. If your files are small and you are comfortable with having your data in cyberspace you might want to check out a few of them.

So, I hope this helps some of you that asked the question of what I use. Let me know if I can help any further.

We have all been warned, we all know how important the data on our computer is to us, but what do we do to protect ourselves?  A couple of weeks ago I headed to Dallas, Texas and prior to packing up the lap top, I plugged in my book, and hit back up entire system.

Since my laptop is pretty close to capacity it takes a while to do a full and complete back up - I generally only have the system back up files that have been changed since my last back up.  When I am going to travel though, I create a full and complete back up and over write everything - I want one clean back up to make restoring a breeze.

I have never had to use my back up - but there have been times in the past that I did not back up like this and some little gremlin would come in and destroy everything on my computer.  No back up meant I had to start everything over, had to recreate the wheel and years of hard work.

Now, I back up all of my systems and do it regularly - and as is standard when you take precautions I have never needed my back up..... until this last week.  While in Texas I had a major malfunction - I was able to get my laptop back up and running and everything seemed great until yesterday - I lost it all...

I hit the on button and nothing - I thought the lap top was dead - after 3 years of abuse it would not have surprised me - I was amazed - I found the rescue disk - installed and loaded my backup with the restore - a couple hours later I was up and running. 

After completing a little maintenance the laptop is good as new - well maybe better - it has everything on it... my contacts, my programs, my documents and my photos -

If you do not back up your system please do so, there are so many choices today that are so much more affordable, easy to store and easy to use. 

Thank you ActiveRain.  Because of ActiveRain, I had the opportunity to meet two very special REALTORS® while visiting family in Texas.

Marchel Peterson, Chirs Tesch and Myself met up for a night of laughing about life, and getting to know each-other.  We had a blast, it was amazing to find how much we had in common.

I can not believe I never took a photo of the three of us.... Chris and I did manage to get this one as she dropped me off at my sisters.

Next visit - we are threatening to raid the Woodlands.... so Stephanie and Candy - watch out!

Thanks ActiveRain, without you this would not have been possible.