Hello and

welcome to Moneygirls quick and dirty tips for a richer life.

Today's topic, more on how to sell your house tax-free.

Last spring I did a podcast episode about how to sell your house tax-free.

It's a topic that I've received many questions about so I'd like to take

a moment to answer some of these questions in today's episode. A listener named Ted

emailed in and asks, is the $250,000 capital gains exclusion a lifetime deal?

That is, can I get five, $50,000 tax-free capital gains,

spaced at least two years apart in my lifetime,

or is the $250,000 exclusion for each transaction?

Okay, let's start out by recapping how the exclusion on capital gains from the sale of your house works.

When you sell your house you can exclude up to $250,000 of the gain, if you're single, and up to $500,000 of the gain if you're single and up to $500,000 of the gain if you're married and filed jointly,

if you've owned and lived in the house for two of the previous five years.

These limits apply to each transaction.

This exclusion is a great tax break,

and you can use it as many times as you want.

You simply must have lived in the house

for two of the previous five years to be eligible for it.

And the two years do not need to be consecutive, so there's quite a bit of flexibility.

You could, for example, live in your house for at least two years,

then rent it out, and then sell it up to three years later and take advantage of the exclusion.

If your profit is less than the $250,000 or $500,000 exclusion amounts,

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