All Forum Posts by: Aaron Zimmerman

Sometimes you may outgrow your CPA. It happens often where you need different services/expertise than what they provide. There are a lot of mistakes that can be made by your CPA that you may not catch or opportunities that you're not aware of. I'd recommend trying to find a new CPA. There a lot of us on here. Reach out to a few and see who you connect well with if you're open to working remote.

Yes. There a couple quality meet-ups. PM me if you'd like me to send to you some links to a couple FB groups. I don't believe we're allowed to post on the forums. 

As stated above, I would caution doing this yourself. There are far too many traps to get into, with the biggest amongst what I see from my clients are:

1. Depreciation calculation - this is not straightforward with a house hack

2. Allocating common expenses - you can allocate common expenses based upon a formula of # of bedrooms used or square footage of each unit. For the vast majority of my clients, I use bedrooms as it's generally easier and more advantageous. 

3. Allocating non-common expenses (i.e. repairs) - depending on which unit(s) work is being performed for repairs, you may be able to deduct a portion of it, none of it, or all of it. 

This is definitely not a DIY job and there are too many pitfalls. For the cost of preparing the tax return (which a portion can be deductible), it is simply not worth your time and effort. Your time and effort are best concentrated on either finding more properties or optimizing your current house hack. 

There's a few approaches:

1. Try and become a real estate professional to offset the losses against active income

2. Knock income down below $150k to get some benefit

3. Purchase additional cash flowing real estate that will have positive taxable income. The income will presumably be offset by the losses (depending on level of losses and income)

If you're willing to work remotely, there are quite a few CPAs/EAs on here that are more than qualified. Feel free to reach out to them and see if you click with any of them and go from there. 

Eamonn and Ashish are both active on here (and have provided a ton of value). I'd start with those two. I don't have personal experience but after reading several accounting responses each have written, they both definitely know their stuff. 

I would get stessa or Quickbooks or something along those lines for bookkeeping if you think that's needed. It's hard to say exactly what you need. 

If you're looking to reduce this expense, I'd go on Upwork. You can think of this expense like overhead. 

Biggerpockets is a great resource. Otherwise, as stated above, go to some meetings and ask people who their CPAs are. If you're looking to get plugged into some Chicago groups, happy to pass those links on to you!

Also- for the LLC you created, is it single member or multi-member?

@Michael Fortier welcome to Chicago. As stated above, you should want to house hack where you enjoy living. As such, I'd spend some time soon driving/biking/walking around some of the neighborhoods. You will not find what you're looking for in the A class neighborhoods. You will find what you're looking for in the B/C+ areas. Hope this helps and happy to connect with you!

Make sure to see if you qualify for QBI - it'll take about 20% off business income (if there is any).