Column: About Real Estate

FROM KING FEATURES SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019 CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236 FOR RELEASE WEEK OF JUNE 27, 2021 ABOUT REAL ESTATE Local governments can put limits on federal flag law

BY DAVID W. MYERS A federal law gives people the right to fly “Old Glory,” but local agencies can put reasonable limits on its display.

DEAR DAVE: I placed a large American flag in my front yard, but soon received a letter from the local district attorney stating that I had to take it down because its size “exceeds local limits.”

Isn’t that a violation of my Constitutional Right to “freedom of speech”?

Federal Public Law 94-344, better known as the Federal Flag Act, gives you the right to fly your U.S flag on your front lawn or, as I do, on a metal holder that’s screwed to an exterior wall. But you also must make sure that it conforms to local ordinances, most of which are designed to protect a neighborhood’s overall aesthetics, keep passersby from possible injury, or both.

Contact the district attorney who sent you the letter to find out what restrictions are in place in your area. It should be easy to replace your current flag with a smaller one that meets the local flag ordinance.

Flag-flying rules for owners who live in a development that’s controlled by a homeowners association can be a bit more complicated.

The federal “Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005” makes it illegal for an HOA to prohibit an owner from displaying Old Glory. But it does allow the association to place “reasonable” restrictions on the time, place and manner of such displays provided that the limitations are designed to benefit a substantial portion of the community’s other residents.

For example, an HOA can sometimes limit flag-flying to certain hours of the

day if, say, a particularly large flag that flaps loudly in the wind may keep neighbors awake at night. They can also typically prevent homeowners from displaying a flag that obstructs another owner’s view. *** REAL ESTATE TRIVIA: Traditional guidelines call for displaying your flag in public only from sunrise to sunset, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (www.va.gov).

However, it can also be flown at night if it is properly illuminated. *** DEAR DAVE: Is it true that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos lives in a textile mill in Washington, D.C.?

ANSWER: No, although that rumor has been spreading across the internet lately.

It’s true that Bezos bought the property in 2016, which previously housed the National Textile Museum before its collection of historic rugs, carpets and the like was moved to the sprawling campus of nearby George Washington University.

Public records indicate that the internet impresario paid about $23 million for the 27,000-squre-foot building, and then another $12 million to make it, er, “more livable.”

Bezos, whose net worth is estimated at $200 billion, owns several other mansions in other states. His Washington, D.C. property includes 11 bedrooms, five living rooms, two professional-grade kitchens and a 1,500-square-foot ballroom.

It also has 25 bathrooms, which confirms my long-held belief that rich people must have very weak bladders.

The Bezos estate is much nicer than

those of the magnate’s neighbors, who include Barack and Michelle Obama, real estate titan Jared Kushner and Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump. *** DEAR MR. MYERS: I recently retired from the military after doing two stints in Afghanistan. I would like to use my Veterans Affairs home loan benefits to buy a small apartment building, where I would live in one unit and rent out the others. Does the VA’s no-down-payment loan program include apartments or is it limited to only single-family homes?

ANSWER: The VA will guarantee home-loans for duplexes, triplexes and four-unit apartment buildings provided that the veteran makes one of the units his or her primary residence. Loan limits vary from one part of the nation to the next, based largely on a county’s average property prices.

Visit the va.gov web site for more information or call the VA Loan Center (1-877-827-3702).

Please know that I and millions of my readers give thanks for your service to our nation. *** Our booklet, “Straight Talk about Living Trusts,” provides the information readers need to determine whether forming an expensive trust would be a good idea based on their individual circumstances. For a copy, send $4 and a selfaddressed, stamped envelope to D. Myers/Trust, P.O. Box 4405, Culver City, CA 90231-4405. Net proceeds will be donated to the American Red Cross. Send questions to that same address, and we’ll try to respond in a future column. ©2021 Cowles Syndicate Inc. All Rights Reserved

FROM KING FEATURES SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019 CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236 FOR RELEASE WEEK OF JULY 4, 2021 ABOUT REAL ESTATE How FICO categorizes a borrower’s credit score

BY DAVID W. MYERS The company that created the nation’s most-used scoring system says the typical American has “good” credit. There’s room for improvement.

DEAR DAVE: We are hoping to buy our first home. What would be considered a “good” credit score?

ANSWER: Fair Isaac Corp., the company that introduced the FICO creditscoring method in 1989, determines a consumer’s score based on a scale that ranges from 300 to 850. Generally, the higher your score, the lower the interest rate you’ll pay for a loan to buy a house, car or just about anything else.

Fair Isaac (www.fico.com) considers a score of 300 to 579 “very poor,” while 580 to 669 is “fair.” A score of 670 to 739 is “good”: That includes the typical American, who has an average score of 711.

You should get an even better mortgage rate if your score is in the 740-799 range, which Fair Isaac says is “very good” and the best loan terms possible if your score is in the “exceptional” category of 800 to 850. *** REAL ESTATE TRIVIA: About one in five Americans is considered “unscoreable” or has no credit history at all, according to financial website ValuePenguin.com, making it virtually impossible for them to obtain a traditional loan. *** DEAR DAVE: We gave our home a thorough cleaning and removed a bunch of clutter before we started looking for an agent to sell it. We also removed all the furniture from our backyard patio to emphasize its size to potential buyers, but the agent we eventually chose to handle the listing said that we should rent some nice outdoor furniture from a party rental company or professional home-stager for the patio to “spark a buyer’s imagination.” What do you think that we should do?

ANSWER: I think that you should follow your agent’s advice and refurnish the patio.

“It’s hard [for buyers] to imagine reading on the porch or serving dinner on the patio when there’s no furniture around,” says Amalie Drury, a design expert and a senior manager for home-decor giant Crate & Barrel.

“On the other hand, if buyers see a dining table with a festive umbrella or a pair of cushioned lounge chairs with a side table for drinks, they’ll perceive the space as valuable additional square footage where they can unwind with family or entertain.”

Drury also reminds sellers to make sure that their landscaping in both their front and back yards is in tip-top shape, a task that too many often overlook.

“Banish the weeds and trim the bushes,” she advises. “Nothing makes a house look unloved faster than an overgrown lawn or a patio with dandelions poking through every crack.” *** DEAR DAVE: Does the Internal Revenue Service still allow home sellers to keep up to $250,000 of their resale profit tax-free?

ANSWER: Yes. Though there have been lots of changes to the nation’s federal tax code over the past several years, most single taxpayers can still keep up to $250,000 of their net profit tax-free and joint filers can keep as much as $500,000 away from the clutches of the IRS — provided that they meet two key requirements.

First, the seller must have owned the home for at least two years. And second, the property must have served as their “principal residence” — in other words, their primary home — for two out of the past five years, ending on the actual date of the sale. Talk with an accountant or similar tax professional for details. *** DEAR DAVE: What is a “poor door”?

ANSWER: It’s a derogatory term for a

separate entrance to a building, found in many New York City apartment buildings and some other metro areas, that were built with the help of taxpayerfunded subsidies. Developers could qualify for the subsidies if they agreed to reserve a portion of the new rental units for low- and moderate-income tenants at below-market rates.

Poor doors aren’t nearly as elaborate as the entrances used by tenants who pay the full market rate: There usually aren’t fancy marble or granite floors, oil paintings on the walls, a doorman and other such niceties. And by using the poor doors, a tenant often doesn’t have access to the gyms, pools and other amenities that can sometimes only be reached by using the main entrance.

Advocates for the poor have long maintained that the use of poor doors is just another form of housing discrimination, stigmatizing lower-income tenants and widening the social gap between the rich and poor. Defenders of the practice note that its use is sometimes required because some apartment or condo complexes have two or more buildings — one dedicated for use by lower-income residents — and that many of those residents would be unwilling or unable to pay the higher monthly dues that would be needed to maintain a fancier entrance with lots of “extras.” *** Our booklet, “Straight Talk about Living Trusts,” explains how even lowand middle-income homeowners can now reap the same benefits that creating an inexpensive trust once provided only to the wealthiest families. For a copy, send $4 and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to D. Myers/Trust, P.O. Box 4405, Culver City, CA 90231-4405. Net proceeds will be donated to the American Red Cross. Send questions to that same address, and we’ll try to respond in a future column.

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©2021 Cowles Syndicate Inc. All Rights Reserved