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Anticipate problems with zoning laws and neighbors before you start a home-based business.

Dear Mr. Myers: I would like to begin a home-based business, but I don't know if my neighborhood's zoning laws would permit it. How can I find out?

A: The best approach would be to personally visit your local city or town hall and simply ask for copies of the zoning laws that apply to your area. Play your request close to your vest: If you also tell the desk clerk that you'd like to start a home-based business, the bureaucrat likely will reject your plan immediately or at least "flag" you for a followup, either of which could cause lots of problems later.

Zoning ordinances vary from one community to the next. Some communities welcome home-based businesses, provided they won't create any additional traffic or parking problems on the street, will not raise the area's noise levels and won't increase local pollution. That's good if the business that you're thinking of starting would involve, say, a small mail-order or medical-transcription service from your home. But that's bad if you're planning to start a potentially noisy auto-repair service in your garage or would be (as one home-based "business opportunity" that was recently advertised) a "backyard composting system, complete with the basic fertilizers and chemicals needed to start making $$$ from your customers within weeks!"

You also will have to keep your neighbors happy. If your business would require that you receive or send a lot of shipments each week, it would be better to rent a post office box or lease a private box at some place like Mail Boxes Etc., and then pick the stuff up yourself rather than angering the families on the block by having Federal Express or UPS trucks rumbling down your street every day.

If your business would require that you see multiple clients on a regular basis, try to schedule the appointments in the clients' own offices or communicate as much as possible with them by phone or e-mail: It's a good way to keep neighbors appeased, because it can help keep traffic and parking issues on your street to a minimum. Also tell the neighbors that, by working from home, you'll be available to sign for their own occasional packages or even pick up their kids from school if the parents get hung up at work.

Dear Mr. Myers: Home sales in my area started falling in 2006, but activity has really picked up in the past couple of months and I have been thinking about getting a real estate license. How much do agents earn each year?

A: Most agents are paid on a commission basis, so there's really no way to predict how much money that you would make if you get a sales license. If you sell a lot of homes, your earnings might easily reach into six figures. But if you sell only part-time, you could actually lose money, because it's expensive to drive "lookie-loos" from one open house to the next or to properly market a home that is for sale.

That said, a recent study by the National Association of Realtors found that the median earnings of their 1.1 million members in 2007 was $42,600. The median is the "midway point," meaning that half of all agents made less and the other half made more.

The typical agent worked 40 hours per week, the report says, but those who worked 60 hours or more each week grossed $80,800.

Dear Mr. Myers: We are selling our four-bedroom home and moving into a prefurnished retirement apartment that is much smaller. As a result, we have a lot of appliances, furniture, clothes and the like that we would like to donate to charity. Can we take a tax deduction for the donations?

A: Yes, the value of the donated items may be deducted to lower your next income-tax bill. But it's important to note that the Internal Revenue Service has recently tightened its rules concerning such deductions, in part because some Americans were inflating the value of the items that they gave away to boost their write-offs.

The IRS says that you cannot deduct the value of most donated household items or clothes unless they are in "good used condition or better." That's a vague rule, and the agency doesn't provide any additional guidance for taxpayers to determine whether the items they donate have a legitimate (tax-deductible) value or is simply nondeductible junk.

To protect yourself against a future audit, make sure that you get an itemized receipt from the charity that accepts your donation.

If the charity you select can't tell you how much your old couch or dining-room table is worth, you can get a rough estimate by visiting the Salvation Army's Web site (www.satruck.com) and clicking the "Valuation Guide."