Key Areas of Your Business to Review Before Year-End!

[Julio Gonzalez]

There are 6 key areas of having your own real estate business that I recommend reviewing periodically to ensure you are on the path to growth and sustainability. It’s a great way to check in with yourself to course correct if needed.

1. Ensure your accounting is current.
   1. Are your books up to date? Do you do the books yourself or have you hired someone? If you are trying to do them yourself and continuously fall behind, it might be a good idea to look into hiring a bookkeeper. If you have a bookkeeper, ensure you provide any receipts, documentation, etc. to them on a timely basis. It’s also important to sit down (or have a virtual meeting) with your accountant on a quarterly basis to review your financials. What software do you use? If you currently use Excel and notice yourself falling behind or having errors, maybe it’s time to upgrade to a software that automatically pulls in all of your bank transactions.
2. Review profit margins and cash flow for each of your properties.
   1. Is the cash flow of each property still as projected when you purchased the property? Are there unnecessary expenses that can be cut out? Are there services that you could shop around for to save money? Is the strategy that you are currently using still the strategy that will help cash flow the property or are there ways to increase your current cash flow? If you're in a city with new STR regulations and your property is now a banned STR area, will your property cash flow using MTR or LTR or do you need to start considering a 1031 exchange?
3. Maximize your tax deductions
   1. Ensure you’re getting proper tax planning done throughout the year, so you are minimizing taxes. Do you have a CPA that specializes in real estate taxation?
   2. Have you looked into cost segregation studies, bonus depreciation, 179D, historical tax credits, etc.? When reviewing the cash flow of properties, you discovered the cash flow was not feasible for a property, you could consider a 1031 Exchange to sell the property and replace it with a new property in the most tax efficient manner.
4. Review your objectives and goals.
   1. Are you on track to meet your goals? If not, what do you need to adjust to get back on track? Are you spending time in the right areas? If you wanted to add a certain number of doors this year to your portfolio, what is holding you back? Do you need to look for new ways to find financing? Brandon Turner has a great book on creative Real Estate financing strategies: Investing in Real Estate with No (and Low) Money Down
5. Surround yourself with those achieving what you desire.
   1. It’s so important to surround yourself with mentors in the real estate business. Go to local meetups in your city, be active in the BiggerPockets forums, network on BP and LinkedIn. If you haven’t attended the annual BPCON, it’s a great resource for learning and especially for networking. Plus, it’s in Cancun in 2024!
6. Always be learning and growing.
   1. Business is constantly changing, so ensure you are ahead of the curve! Attend seminars and webinars, read books, keep up with the market, etc. BiggerPockets has a whole library of books that are extremely helpful.
   2. Here are some of my favorite books in the BP Library:
      1. The Book on Tax Strategies for the Savvy Real Estate Investor
      2. The Book on Advanced Tax Strategies
      3. The House Hacking Strategy
      4. Rental Property Investing

Which of these 6 things have you reviewed recently? Let me know in the comments below!

[Jake Baker]

Number 1 is so true. Everyone wants to talk about tax loopholes and cost segregation studies. The number 1 tax-saving strategy = having good bookkeeping.