All Forum Posts by: Aaron Zimmerman

There's a program through IHDA where you can apply to get rent paid for by the government. See link here. That would be my suggestion as a start unless you really want them out. 

@Lukas Iraola - there's quite a few CPAs on here that would be willing to help you out and discuss entity structure/investing plans/tax opportunities. I think it'd be well worth the money (as well as tax deductible) to have a consult for your business. One possibility to sock some extra $ away would be to start a solo 401(k). You can contribute up to $58k for 2021 (there are limiting factors here), so you'd want to talk to a CPA about potentially getting this set up and determining your eligibility. 

Alejandro - I don't know if you're in some of the Chicago FB groups but happy to pass those along. Those will be where the meetups are posted. 

Depends on the following factors: 

1. number of units

2. organization of bookkeeping provided. If it's great, then you'll be paying less in fees. 

3. Additional services

Candidly, that's probably a pretty fair price assuming the filing is done correctly. It also depends for tax advisory services as well. They could spend an hour or two preparing for the meeting and have it be an hour meeting. If they're doing your 1040 as well, that's a really good price. 

I'd recommending reaching out to your fellow investors in the area to see who they use. That'd be a good place to start. If not, there's quite a few of us on here that are real estate focused CPAs. 

It would appear based off the facts above that you should take 3/5 of common expenses (utilities, mortgage interest, property taxes, etc) as business expenses. If you have specific repairs for a room you're renting, you can allocate that to be a 100% business deduction. However, if you're doing a repair for your room, it will not be deductible. There's a lot of nuances so it's best to talk with a qualified RE focused CPA. 

I would look at schedule E and read the instructions in addition to what's stated above. 

It might be worth it to get an appraisal as well to establish that FMV as well should you want to hold onto it. I'd recommend talking to one or two knowledgable CPAs about your specific situation and go from there.

House hack. Easiest and lowest risk. Reduces rent, builds equity, gets you experience as a landlord and will know what to expect from a PM later on should you decide to go that route. 

Very nice commentary on this. I agree with everything stated above. It's always essential to dot your i's and cross your t's when taking deductions and preparing your taxes. You don't want loose ends out there that could come back to bite you. With that being said, I support more resources for the primary revenue generating body of the United States. This should bring in some additional tax revenue and as real estate investors, we should appreciate good investments. My tax professor said a couple years back that for every dollar that's allocated to the IRS, it can bring back $4. Not a bad ROI.