Road to Realty

We have heard time and time again that one of the big benefits of owning Real Estate is the tax benefits. We currently own one investment property, and we have not held it for a full tax year. We still have yet to see what these benefits look like on paper. However, we are not…

Between the heat and everything going on, both in the world and in our lives, this post will just be a brief synopsis of our progress down the road to REI.  Probably the biggest step we’ve taken lately, is that we signed with a tax strategist. In an earlier post, we discussed our initial interview…

So we have officially hit a bump in our road to realty. Right now, it seems like a minor enough one, but since technically we have not cleared it completely, the true impact remains to be seen. Our property management company uses Buildium to interact with the owners and track all of the finances (rent,…

A few weeks ago, Ken wrote about the advantages of a tax strategist and our upcoming search for one. Since then, we have had conversations with two different financial planning companies. We have follow up appointments with both.  The first works specifically with those in public service due to the special retirement accounts available. We…

A big thing happened this week (technically it happened a month ago also, but this week is a much bigger deal). For the first time since starting our investment journey, we are cash flow positive. We got our tenant toward the end of April, and the rent was prorated for that month. May’s rent went…

We are nearing the end of May, and we all know what that means… That’s right, time to start thinking about next year’s taxes!  As part of this journey in Real Estate Investing, one key learning was the difference between tax preparation and tax strategy.  In the past, we have used both CPAs and popular…

If you watched the Netflix series, Schitt’s Creek, you may remember the episode where David goes on a shopping spree for his new store, calling everything a write off. Johnny eventually asks him who is writing everything off and David says the government! While write offs are a helpful tool, the money still needs to…

My 4.5 year old daughter started crying last night. You might ask why or, if you have a child around the same age, might ask what else is new. This specific crying incident was because we did not go to an open house. Not that there was an open house we were supposed to go…

This last week was stressful. At various points, my phone went swimming (and became nonoperational), both kids vomited, and one of them had a concussion. Add to the equation two parents working full time and you might understand our week. I mention this not to complain, though it is a good reminder of our why,…

One of the few things Ken and I have disagreed about in this process was when to set up our business systems. I hesitate to even call it a disagreement since it was barely controversial but it was something we debated for awhile. Ken wanted to have our business systems (specifically legal entities) in place…