Good news for real estate investors. The 15% capital gains tax rate has been extended through 2010. According to a tax advisor writing for the Orange County association of Realtors, there is a lower 5% rate for people in the 15% tax bracket. She said that will drop to 0% in 2008 and has been extended to 2010. I didn’t find any other references to this, but on Smartmoney.com, I did find further information on the current tax structure. Smartmoney confirmed the general rule of 15% on the long term capital gains rate, but also reminded investors of the 25% rate that applies to unrecaptured Section 1250 gains (that is the depreciation taken). The bottom line is that it is still a great time to sell real estate and pocket the gains since we have an historically low long term capital gains rate. Now that we are going to have a large Democratic majority in both the house and senate, any bets that that rate will increase? I’ll take that bet.