Full Show 12-27-2025: Property Transfer and You

·1 hr 8 min·2 clips

Courtney Fricke explains how a $50,000 basis becomes $250,000 for heirs through the step-up in basis, and why gifting early can forfeit it.

1. The Home Improvement Show on the Big 870 (WWL) aired a full two-hour episode on December 27, 2025, titled "Property Transfer and You," mixing real estate tax strategy with home improvement call-ins. 2. Hosts Paul and Courtney Fricke take listener calls and texts at 504-260-1870, with Paul covering the "swinging hammer" questions and Fricke, a real estate investor for over a decade in greater New Orleans, South Louisiana and South Mississippi, covering title, financing and succession. 3. Fricke's real estate tip of the week is to "pump your brakes" and talk to a CPA and estate planning attorney before gifting a property to an heir while still alive. 4. She explains the step-up in basis with a property bought for $50,000 and worth $250,000, where a seller faces $200,000 of taxable gain but an heir's basis resets to $250,000. 5. She suggests alternatives such as a trust, an LLC or a will so a child can use a rental, with the child covering property taxes, insurance and repairs, and she repeats that she is not an attorney. 6. In response to a caller named Darren, Fricke describes the 1031 exchange: it must be set up before the sale, it requires a qualified intermediary, and it carries a 45-day identification period and a 180-day exchange period, and flips do not qualify. 7. Paul answers a text about heat pump incentives by pointing to DSIREUSA.org, noting that some Louisiana tax credits expire at the end of 2025, and he tells a texter that Louisiana plumbing code requires a P-trap under a bathtub, which also keeps out sewer gases and must be disclosed at sale. 8. On a flood elevation certificate question, Fricke says FEMA 2.0 weighs proximity to water and not only flood zone and elevation, so a certificate may not lower premiums, and she recommends quoting both federal and private flood markets. 9. In the second hour, Paul lays out a multi-part approach to indoor air quality, including source control of cleaning products, scents and candles, a pre-filter plus media filter, larger return air intakes to reduce velocity, active charcoal filters and limited outside air in the Gulf South climate. 10. Suited to homeowners, landlords and investors in Louisiana wanting real estate tax and air quality guidance.

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