The Real Estate Espresso Podcast

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Tax On Unrealized Gains Feb 27, 2026

Show notes

Today we are talking about a policy idea that keeps resurfacing around the world, taxing unrealized gains.

If you have ever underwritten a deal, you already know the difference between a gain on paper and cash in the bank. Unrealized gains are accounting gains. They exist because an asset is worth more today than it was yesterday, at least according to some valuation method. But until you sell the asset, refinance it, or otherwise monetize it, that gain is not cash flow. It is potential.

In the Netherlands, there is proposed legislation that would tax unrealized capital gains. It is being discussed under the umbrella of reforming “Box 3,” the part of the Dutch personal income tax system that applies to savings and investments. The Dutch lower house adopted a bill on February 12, 2026, often referred to as the Box 3 Actual Return Act, with an intended effective date of January 1, 2028, although the Finance Minister has already indicated amendments may be needed and that Senate approval is uncertain.

So why is the Netherlands going down this road? Because their current system has been under pressure for years.

Historically, Box 3 taxed investors based on a deemed return, a fictitious assumed rate of return, rather than what someone actually earned. When interest rates were near zero, people with cash savings were taxed as if they were earning healthy investment returns. Courts rejected that approach, and the government has been trying to craft a replacement. In response, a bill was advanced to move from deemed returns to “actual return.” The catch is in how “actual return” is defined.

Under the bill the system would tax actual annual returns at a flat rate, and that includes value increases that have not been realized through sale, in other words, unrealized gains.

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Changing Florida Tax Rules Impact Real Estate Investors Feb 26, 2026

Show notes

Today we are talking about a piece of legislation in Florida that, if it ultimately becomes law, could reshape how property taxes are calculated across the state for decades to come. It is House Joint Resolution 203, often referred to as HJR 203, and it has just passed the Florida House.

Now, first, a reminder, a joint resolution like this is not a typical statute change. It proposes a constitutional amendment. In Florida, that means voters ultimately decide, and it generally requires a 60 percent approval threshold on the ballot.

So what does HJR 203 propose?

The short version is that it would gradually expand the homestead exemption for non school property taxes by $100,000 per year for ten years beginning in 2027, and by 2037, it would fully exempt homestead property from non school ad valorem taxes. School district levies remain.

So why does this matter to real estate investors, even investors who do not own homesteads?

Because property taxes are not just a line item. They are a transfer system. If you change who is exempt, you change who must carry the load, or you change what services get funded, or both. And if you change the tax base, you can change market behavior.

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Live From Sonoma Feb 26, 2026

Show notes

I’m coming to you live from Sonoma California where I’ve been attending a small business mastermind event. Today we are talking about something that, on the surface, looks like agriculture and tourism, but underneath is a case study in economic gravity. This is the result of direct observation and conversation with people who are local to the market.

Northern California wine country, Napa and Sonoma in particular, has an aura of permanence. Rolling hills, tasting rooms, hospitality, luxury brands, and a global reputation built over decades. When something has that much cultural momentum, people assume it is immune to basic supply and demand. It is not.

Every business lives inside a box of four forces, supply, demand, capital cost and regulation. We’re not going to talk about capital cost today.

When supply expands faster than demand, prices compress. When regulation rises, costs increase and flexibility disappears. When all three move against you at once, even great operators can find themselves trapped.

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The New Factory Is Coming To Town Feb 24, 2026

Show notes

On today’s show we are talking about the biggest obstacle to manufacturing in the US. When I was deeply involved in the tech industry as a microprocessor design engineer, there was a culture. It’s a culture that has turned out to be unhealthy and is one of the core reasons why we don’t have manufacturing in North America.

There will continue to be announcements of new data centres, of manufacturing, and perhaps other major investments. The success of those initiatives is not about tariffs, or the real estate, or the tax incentives offered by the local government. It’s going to be about growing the talent pool of skills to gain critical mass in those geographic locations. Only then you will see the transformation of industrial activity in the country. That kind of brain trust is not developed in a week or a month. Where we have dozens of people with that deep expertise in a major city, you will find tens of thousands in Taiwan and China.

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AMA - Remote Management Feb 24, 2026

Show notes

Joseph lives in California and has a property in central Florida. The issue is a series of tenants causing damage and defaulting on their rent. Should I sell and cut my losses?

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Protecting Your Estate With Brett Swarts Feb 22, 2026

Show notes

Brett is based in Jacksonville Florida and specializes in reducing capital gains taxes. On today's show we are talking about substantial estate taxes that kick in above $15M in assets. Brett shares strategies for mitigating those taxes. To connect with Brett and to learn more visit capitalgainstaxsolutions.com. He also has a new book, available on Amazon called Building A Capital Gains Tax Exit Plan.

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Property Management Changes with Kelley Brine Feb 22, 2026

Show notes

Kelley is based in NYC and is the President of Rose Valley Management, an institutional firm with over 10,000 apartments in their portfolio nationwide. On today's show we are talking about how market dynamics have changed with the current over-supply in many primary markets. It involves adapting to market conditions to create a more competitive offer for existing tenants.

To connect with Kelley, you can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelley-brine-37a4525/

or visit https://www.rosevalleymanagement.com/

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Beware The Data Center Land Speculators Feb 20, 2026

Show notes

Today we’re talking about a phenomenon that’s showing up in land markets across North America, especially in regions being marketed as “next wave” data center corridors.

There is real data center demand. No question. But there’s also a growing layer of speculative behavior that is creating noise, inflating expectations, and in some cases putting landowners at risk.

Here’s what’s happening.

A group of land speculators, often with no backing from an actual data center owner or operator, are putting large acreage under contract with the hope of reselling those contracts. They’re not buying the land to build. They’re trying to control the land long enough to flip the paper.

In hot markets, controlling the asset is sometimes more valuable than owning it, at least for a short window. If you can tie up 200 acres near transmission lines and a proposed substation, you can market the contract like you’re bringing a “site” to the table, even when you have no real end user.

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Old Tankers Will Impact The World Economy Feb 20, 2026

Show notes

You’ve heard me say it numerous times. Energy is the economy. If you don’t believe me, just look at Cuba. The country is being starved for oil and the country is unable to function. At first it was just the United States imposing sanctions on countries that it sees as violating international law. That includes Russia, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, and certainly a few others. But those sanctions have been largely paper exercises involving money and financial instruments.

It’s only when a physical blockade of oil tankers severed energy trade routes that we started to see a real tangible impact. Other countries have joined in and impounded vessels that were carrying sanctioned oil.

When it comes to global oil prices, the usual metrics of supply and demand seem to rule the day. The measure surplus or shortage is based on inventories consisting of tank storage and “oil on the water” which is oil in the hold of a ship. But what about the dark fleet that doesn’t report its inventories?

They are called “dark" because they turn off their AIS transponders which allows for position tracking. They participate in ship-to-ship (STS) transfers in international waters, and these ships frequently change country of registration to make tracking more difficult.

That is how a “shipping problem” becomes an “oil price problem,” even when there is plenty of crude in the ground.

An oil tanker crunch is coming. New ships are not being built fast enough and these older ships are going to be very difficult to bring back into good standing with the world’s major insurers. We could see a global oil shortage because of a shortage of insurable ships.

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It's Hard To Compete With Free Feb 19, 2026

Show notes

I asked an AI tool to write a program for me from scratch.

Let me be clear, I’ve never written a software program for MacOS. I have not read any of the documentation on where to start or how to do it.

I asked Claude to create a game of tic-tac-toe. The AI tool did the entire job in less than 15 minutes. I now have a functioning game of tic-tac-toe on my computer. It cost only a few pennies to create it, far less than the $2-5 that it originally estimated.

The true power of the process is that I got the AI to write the instructions for writing the software from a pretty vague set of specifications. It showed me that far more complex problems can be solved using this approach with only a few minutes of thought. This opens up the world of solutions that would have been unthinkable only a few months ago. These tools are collapsing the cost of writing software virtually down to zero. The large scale adoption of these approaches will change the world. It has already.

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