My wife has been operating her eBay business now for about 3 years. I have watched her progress with great interest; the jubilation and sometimes her utter frustration. Her original intention was (and to an extent, still is) to build a successful business to add to her other business interests. Whilst personally, becoming a member of the eBay community has never really set my pulse racing, I have no doubt that for some, the business can prove lucrative and sometimes, fun.As with any new business you are proposing to get into, it is important to have a plan. Yes, the plan can be modified with the benefit of experience, but it really helps to determine in your own mind, what you want to achieve from the business at the outset and how you are going to achieve your goals. This is as important with eBaying as it is with any other start up home based business.It seems to me there are predominantly three types of eBayer profiles:First we have the “dabblers”. These are people who enjoy the experience of selling the odd item here and there. The items they list are usually sourced from a clear-out of the attic, children’s bedroom and garage etc. Expectations in terms of earnings are usually very modest and if they end up getting a few dollars for unwanted items and at the same time de-clutter the house, well the exercise is worthwhile and satisfying. The dabbler usually has no ambition to take the business any further. In essence, eBaying from time to time, is a hobby.Next we have the person with slightly more ambition; someone who wants or needs to make a part-time income from the business. This could be a work at home mom or someone who is already working for an employer part-time and wants to continue to earn the same level of income, but working for themselves at home. For such people, the need is to sell items on a daily or regular basis; therefore, the challenge is to find a product or products which are in demand. For example, my wife is very smart at making girl’s dresses and she also knits really nice sweaters. She also sources kid’s necklaces and bracelets. These product lines form the basis of a nice little income. I think the point about the products you sell is that you don’t necessarily have to sell manufactured items. If you have a talent for making or creating things, why not put those talents to good use.Lastly, we have the Powerseller or wannabe Powerseller. These are people or organisations that are deadly serious about making as much money as they can from their eBay business. A new level of sophistication comes into play; bulk purchasing of products, storage facilities, often a fully customised e-commerce website and a finely tuned marketing strategy. Given the number of sales the powerseller makes, some prefer to use the services of a drop-shipper i.e. they outsource the order fulfillment side of the business to concentrate on marketing their products. They have also developed their own product niche and of course, made sure their pricing strategy is highly competitive. The professional powerseller is always mindful of his reputation and therefore has to maintain a high feedback rating (as near to 100% as possible). Yes, make no mistake, some powersellers make a very good living indeed, but the demands of being in the top echelon of eBay, in terms of time, commitment and energy are not going to be for everyone, even if they do have sufficient business acumen.So, if you have been contemplating becoming an eBay seller, which category do you think you might fit into?

While an online home-based business can be a very exciting endeavor, there are some pitfalls to be avoided if you are going to have some success.Some of these pitfalls include the following:* Getting distracted by other business opportunity offers;
* Getting distracted by other online based activities;
* Being bombarded with a tremendous amount of information that results in information overload.
* Being susceptible to a high level of business scam.Of course the above is not exhaustive but is enough to be cause for concern in running your online business.So how do you ensure that you at the very least avoid these pitfalls and get on with the task of running your business?The simple answer really is adequate preparation. Prepare yourself mentally in knowing what these pitfalls are for one, and the level of danger that they pose to the success of your business.Understanding how each of these threats can undermine your efforts at running your online home business is important in avoiding them and managing any attendant effects. For example, do you understand the danger posed to your own online business when you constantly pursue other business opportunities to you?Are you sufficiently aware of how allowing your enthusiasm to be driven by nothing but a slick sales pitch can negatively affect your mindset ultimately? Do you understand the linkage between this and the fact that you probably are guilty of jumping from opportunity to opportunity with no success to show?Do you understand the difference the importance of seeing yourself as an online home business operator and not an online consumer? Here is a clue – slick internet marketers love when you see yourself only as a consumer because then you tend to forget what your business is about. You become an easy sell.Businesses make rational buying decisions after careful thought and based on a good feel for how what they are buying fit into their business model. Consumers make decisions based on impulse and what they feel will bring them satisfaction.The lesson – you cannot be an online consumer trying to run an online home based business. You have to be a professional business operator.If you are going to have a good chance of running a successful online home based business, you have to get to understand the above issues at a very deep level. Just knowing that you should not waste time with e-mails or chasing other business opportunities when you should be doing something for your business is not enough.You have to have a deep understanding about these issues so that the negative consequences are drilled so deep into your consciousness that it becomes painful every time you even attempt to do anything like these that will undermine your own efforts. And we all know that most likely you will automatically seek to avoid the pain.That is your most effective approach to avoiding and dealing with the pitfalls that you are bound to face in running an online home-based business.

The Issue: How to Hold Property in California?

Countless individuals invest in real estate every day. Some dream of becoming the next real estate mogul, while others simply wish to supplement their salary with additional income. Whatever your motivations, owning investment properties can produce big rewards, but also big problems. This is why it is important to hold title to your property in the most beneficial way. The internet is saturated with various posts and articles touting the most effective techniques to manage your property. It can often be a daunting task weeding through the mass of information in an attempt to discern what advice is reliable and what advice can get you into trouble. Our goal here is to provide a succinct and clear summary of the safest and most important strategies for holding investment property in California. We hope the result will be a valuable starting point in considering the best ways to both protect you as the owner/landlord from liability and also guarantee the best treatment of your assets.

The Risks of Owning Real Estate

As stated above, while property can be a valuable investment, there are also significant risks. One of the biggest risks is lawsuits. From common slip and falls, to environmental contamination, landlords and owners are easily exposed to legal judgments. Landlords have also been successfully sued by victims of crimes — such as robberies, rape, and even murder — that occur on their property on the theory that the landlord provided inadequate security.

Options for Holding Real Estate

Faced with the risk of lawsuits, it is crucial that you do not own investment real property in your own name. (The only real property you should hold in your own name is your primary residence.) Thankfully, there are several ways in which an individual can hold property other than in his/her own name. These include as a corporation, limited partnership, limited liability company (“LLC”), trust, and many others. While there are many options, when it comes to real estate investment, LLCs are the preferred entity by most investors, attorneys and accountants.

For many reasons, few investors hold investment real estate in C corporations. A corporation protects the shareholders from personal liability, but the double taxation of dividends and the inability to have “paper losses” from depreciation flow through to owners make a C corporation inappropriate for real estate investments.

In the past, partnerships and limited partnerships were the entities of choice for real estate investors. Limited partners were protected from personal liability while also being able to take passed through tax losses (subject to IRS rules–you’ll need an accountant or attorney to sort out the issues of at-risk limitations and so on) from the property. However, the biggest downfall with limited partnerships was that someone had to be the general partner and expose himself to unlimited personal liability.

Many small real estate investors also hold property in a trust. While a living trust is important for protecting the owner’s privacy and provides valuable estate planning treatment, the trust provides nothing in the area of protection from liability. However, although a trust provides no liability protection, it should not be overlooked, as it can easily be paired with an LLC.

1. Benefits of a LLC

LLCs appear to be the best of all worlds for holding investment real estate. Unlike limited partnerships, LLCs do not require a general partner who is exposed to liability. Instead, all LLC owners — called members — have complete limited liability protection. LLCs are also superior to C corporations because LLCs avoid the double taxation of corporations, yet retain complete limited liability for all members. Furthermore, LLC’s are rather cheap and easy to form.

A. One LLC or Multiple LLCs?

For owners of multiple properties, the question arises whether to hold all properties under one LLC, or to create a new LLC for each additional property. For several reasons, it is generally advisable to have one LLC for each property.

First, having a separate LLC own each separate property prevents “spillover” liability from one property to another. Suppose you have two properties worth $500,000 and they’re held in the same LLC. If a tenant is injured at property 1, and wins a $750,000 judgment, he will be able to put a lien on both properties for the entire $750,000 even though property 2 had nothing to do with the plaintiff’s injury.

On the other hand, if each property had its own LLC, then the creditor could only put a lien on the property where the plaintiff was injured (assuming that they cannot pierce the corporate veil).

Additionally, many banks and lenders require separate LLCs for each property. They want the property they’re lending against to be “bankruptcy remote”. This means that the lender doesn’t want a problem at a separate property to jeopardize their security interest in the property that they’re lending on.

2. Benefits of a Trust

As stated above, an LLC may be used concurrently with a trust to provide the best protection and estate treatment for your property. There are many types of trusts, but the revocable living trust is probably the most common and useful for holding title to real estate. The major benefit from holding property in a trust is that the property avoids probate after your death. As many are aware, probate is a court-supervised process for transferring assets to the beneficiaries listed in one’s will. The advantages of avoiding probate are numerous. Distribution of property held in a living trust can be much faster than probate, assets in a living trust can be more easily accessible to the beneficiaries of the trust, and the cost of distributing assets held in a living trust is often less than going through probate. [Note: One should also be aware of other ways to avoid probate. For instance, property held in joint tenancy with a right of survivorship automatically avoids probate whether or not the property is in the living trust. Consult an estate planning attorney for more advice regarding probate matters.]

3. Use Both an LLC and a Trust

Because an LLC and a trust both provide significant benefits to the owner of real property, a smart investor should consider using both a LLC and a trust to adequately protect himself and his property. Utilizing both a trust and a LLC creates the best combination of liability protection and favorable estate planning. To accomplish this, the owner should hold the investment property in a single member LLC, with the living trust as the sole member of the LLC. Here, the trust is the owner of the company and holds all of the interests of the LLC. This form of ownership gives you an added layer of protection from the LLC as well as the additional estate planning benefits of a trust.

A. Costs

For the most part, the costs of forming and maintaining an LLC and trust are rather minimal. For an average LLC, the costs are simply nominal filing fees and an $800 per/yr fee to the state of CA. While simple incorporations may be done on your own, it is strongly advised that you seek the advice of a knowledgeable attorney so that no mistakes are made. The same may be said for forming a trust. A little money now is worth the price of avoiding big problems in the future.

B. The CA LLC Fee

While the costs of forming a LLC are generally small, there are additional fees that may be imposed on LLCs in California depending on gross profits. The California Revenue and Taxation Code Section 17942(a) includes an additional fee on LLCs if total gross income (i.e. rent) exceeds $250,000. “Total gross income” refers to gross revenues (not profits). Under this Tax Code Section, the amount of the fee is determined as follows:

1. $0 for LLCs with total gross income of less than $250,000;
2. $900 for LLCs with total gross income of at least $250,000 but less than $500,000;
3. $2,500 for LLCs with total gross income of at least $500,000 but less than $1,000,000;
4. $6,000 for LLCs with total gross income of at least $1,000,000 but less than $5,000,000; and
5. $11,790 for LLCs with total gross income of $5,000,000 or more.

Although the fee is relatively small, one must consider that the fee is assessed against gross revenues, not profits. This means that the fee is due whether or not your property is profitable. For a property with high revenues but narrow profit margins, the fee would reflect a higher portion of the property’s profitability than it would on a property that is highly profitable. For example, a company that owns an office building with revenues from rent totaling $1 million, but a mortgage of $995,000, would actually operate at a loss after the $6,000 fee was imposed. Furthermore, the fee would be particularly irksome for those companies that foresee incurring losses in their early stages of development.

4. Limited Partnership: a Possible Strategy if Gross Receipts Exceed $250,000

For the vast majority of investors, the CA LLC fee should not dissuade you from forming an LLC. If, however, the impact is severely detrimental, there are several potential solutions that may be explored. A competent attorney or accountant may be able to work with you to avoid this fee. One method may be to form a Limited Partnership. The partnership should be set up with an LLC as the General Partner (assuming liability) and the owner(s) of the property as the limited partner(s). By forming a limited partnership with an LLC acting as the general partner, the landlord can likely avoid the higher fee imposed on an LLC while still protecting his/her personal liability. While this may be a possible solution, it is strongly recommended that you consult with an attorney or accountant regarding the best course of action.

While there are risks associated with real estate, with intelligent decision-making and thoughtful preparation, real property can be a valuable investment. The first step though, is to make sure that you have adequately protected yourself and your property. We hope that this article helps property owners begin to discover the various ways in which one may hold investment property, as well as the protections and benefits provided by such ownership.

Why must we ever give a thought about making an investment? Is it even a necessity or it is just a matter of one’s choice? Even when it comes to investing, why are mutual funds a preferred option than any other instrument?

Yes, mutual funds are any way the best investment solution where one could get better returns in lieu of lesser risks. Moreover, your capital is managed by a fund manager who is an expert of every financial subject and has an experience of more than 10 years, which qualifies him to attend and resolve every matter of concern related to your investment. A mutual fund offers you a choice of investment and flexible withdrawals, where your money is planned inline with your needs.

Smartly Managed

They are managed by fund manager who is profound at tracking the markets and managing the investments. They guide you at every point from when to buy and which one to buy to when to sell the stocks. They manage your funds far better than you. The fund managers have a vast experience of all financial matters and they are an assurance that your investment is safe and will flourish with time. They take the entire responsibility from the very stage where you invest your money to the phase where you wish to withdraw your investment with high returns. This is the reason it assures you better security and management of your funds.

Better Returns

Mutual funds offer higher and better returns than any other traditional investment plan. They offer the best choices to the investors who wish to take lesser risks in lieu of the investments. One must begin with a savings plan by investing in the right mutual funds today. A few investors are often worried about the volatile phase of the market but the data of over the years clearly indicates that investors can make more money if they continue to bet on the market during the volatile phase. Further, mutual funds are one of the safest modes in the sense that the investors are protected against any kind of fraud.

Easy Investment

It is one of the easiest and safest ways to invest your money in stocks. The whole plan is also offered online and is just becomes a matter of a few clicks. Even tracking down the performance could be done easily. The lumpsum is a one-time investment in mutual funds, whereas there is SIP, in which small amount is vested periodically. SIP amount is automatically debited from the investor’s account every month. Thus, it is an easy process which offers higher returns.

Choice of Investment

While most of the other plans are more about dictating you their already laid down plans, mutual funds give you multiple choices. From the very choice of what type of fund do you want and for how long to how much do you want to invest, these all choices reside with you and you have all the right to pick or choose the plan that suits you. All in all, they offer a customized investment plan which is designed as per your requirement.

Diversified Investment

In mutual funds, your funds are diversified and invested across a wide variety of stocks. If one stock faces any change, it will be balanced by the performance of the other stock. It is further advisable, not to invest your money in a single mutual fund category, rather diversify it across different ones to lessen the risk.

Secured Future

While you invest in mutual funds, you actually commit to investing a certain amount of your earnings or savings into a Systematic Investment Plan, where you consistently deposit your money for certain years. This helps in securing your future, where you are disciplined to add a certain value into your plan every month. This becomes your fixed monthly spend, while your other expenses are made from the remaining amount that you are left with. It ensures that save an amount of your earnings that will contribute in offering you a secured future, irrespective of all the miscellaneous expenses that you make. Your amount remains intact and it keeps on growing for a better tomorrow.

Flexible Withdrawal

While almost all the investment instruments hold your money for a specific number of years, this makes it really difficult for you to withdraw the amount in case of emergencies. Mutual funds provide the benefit of liquidity on your invested money. However, you can withhold your money in the plan for as long as you wish to. But it is still advisable not to withdraw the funds before it gets matured complying with the terms of the investment plan.