<p>According to FAFSA's investment asset, investment asset is the net worth of investments. </p>
<p>My family and I do no understand the value of our investments.
We have three different "real estates". </p>
<p>-1 Home A (which I will include for the CSS Profile but not for FAFSA)
-1 Plot of land X (No building)
-1 plot of shared land/real estate Y (with relative)
Home A is unrelated to plot of shared land Y. Home A is in a different neighborhood miles away from plot of shared land Y. </p>
<p>Reporting the shared plot of land Y is giving our family problems. The land is shared: my family owns "half the land" and 1 family (my relatives) owns the other "half". Each family builds a single house for their respective family to live in. Then each family makes a "duplex" on their respective house to receive rental income. My family gets a business license to be able to collect income. The income from this business is reported on schedule E on IRS 1040 and therefore qualifies as an investment asset. </p>
<p>According to our 2013 Real Property Tax Statement, the duplex my family owns has two different statements, both of which have appraised or assessed land values of $0. Also, there is a statement for real estate Y. The home part of the duplex has an <em>appraised</em> building value. After exemptions, the "Building <em>assessed</em> value" is 50K less than that. </p>
<ol>
<li>Which value do I report on the FAFSA?</li>
</ol>
<p>The real property tax statement on real estate Y has an appraised value and a lower assessed value after exemptions. This statement reports the appraised and assessed <em>land and building</em> values of plot Y. The <em>building</em> value reported under this statement is my relative's duplex. The <em>land</em> value reported on this statement is shared between my family and my relative's family. </p>
<ol>
<li>a. Do I report the (plot/real estate Y) building's appraised value, assessed value or neither? </li>
<li>b. """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" land's appraised value, assessed value, neither, or half of the appraised or half of the assessed value?</li>
</ol>
<p>The value of your real estate/land is what you would get if your family sold it quickly. Say, they absolutely needed to get rid of that holding, what could they get for it? It may have nothing to do with tax values. My MIL owns property that is assessed at very little, but you call any realtor in the town and they will say that it could get 10X that amount easily. The assessment is from years ago, and due to her age, how long she’s held the property and just the way that area does or doesn’t reassess has let her keep that low value for tax purposes. Whoever buys that property will get a jolt in the reassessment which s what happens when properties exchange hands. </p>
<p>So call a few realtors and ask what the value of the entire plot/property is and then come up with a value for it, and then apportion it. How much would your family sell this to your relative if they decided they could not or do not want to keep it? </p>
<p>The assessed value for tax purposes is usually a %age of the value of the property. That is NOT what you would use. As Cpte said, your “value” is what you could sell the property for now. For the FAFSA I believe you subtract any mortgage amount currently owed. I haven’t done a Profile in a while, but on that form you used to list the value, then on a separate line you listed any amount owed.</p>
<p>So you need to determine how much you could sell the duplex on YOUR family’s side and the land it sits on for and subtract how much they owe to get the net equity. The other half is really kind of irrelevant.</p>
<p>thumper, just curious–do colleges actually demand written verification of real estate values? Getting an appraisal could be expensive. Would a Zillow valuation be adequate?</p>
<p>I would like to know as well because appraisals are expensive, especially since Zillow and other online assessors are not available in my area. </p>
<p>We never had to provide a real estate cost verification (and both kids went to Profile schools). I am going to guess that the only time this would be required is if the value looked very “off” to the financial aid officer. Like if you put a really low value on a house, for example.</p>