Dawna Davies and her assistant Jodi Blanchard did an exceptional job in helping us sell our home in San Luis Obispo. Dawna’s intelligence and knowledge of the business made the whole complex process easy for us to understand and navigate. What seemed like counter-intuitive advice at the start—that we should be extremely thorough in discovering any possible problems with the forty year old house and present them in advance—turned out to streamline the final transaction by building trust in potential buyers and removing the possibility of unpleasant surprises and uncertainty for us. Her contacts with a wide range of local business people who carried out many preparatory operations quickly and economically offered another unique benefit. Her tact and amiability made our numerous interactions pleasant rather than wary. And Jodi’s work in converting the box full of documents from our files into a coherent house-maintenance-history binder meticulous and creative. From start to finish our involvement with Davies Company was personally as well as financially rewarding.
- Assemble a team of professionals: In advance of your sale, be sure to have an experienced real estate broker with 1031 exchanges, a strategic attorney, a knowledgeable CPA, a reputable accommodator, and a professional escrow company.
- Meet with advisors: Before listing the property to sell, meet with tax & legal advisors to determine tax consequences of selling property.
- Get forms in order: Have your real estate agent or broker include appropriate language in your listing and offer documents to formalize your intent to exchange. These may include preprinted forms for inclusion in the offer documents.
- Identify your search parameters: You will want to be searching for the upleg (new) property well before the downleg (old) property sale closes. As your accomodator will tell you, the time period for identifying your upleg property is limited. Make sure there are several options to buy to avoid buying a less desirable property just to comply with the exchange time periods.
- Confirm timelines: Make sure that all agents/brokers, escrow officers, and accomodators, whom are working on your behalf, are in clear communication and aware of timelines to encourage compliance with IRS exchange requirements.