REI Business accounts

[Maximillian Engram]

Good afternoon,

I am fairly new to real estate and once I acquire my first house hack in the next 8 months, I want to treat it like a business from the begging with systems in place. 

My question is how you have your real estate accounts set up? Do you have separate accounts for each property? or do you have all your income and expenses in one account for all your properties?

And my other question is how do you pay yourself? Do you just transfer the money from your business account to your personal checking account? 

[Scott Crowley]

Quote from @Maximillian Engram:

Quote from @Scott Crowley:

Hello! Are you planning on holding title and operating your house hack in your personal name or are you planning on transferring title to an LLC? Assuming your house hack is no greater than 4 units for the sake of my question.

 hello,

In the beginning yes, I plan on operating it in my name then later transferring the title to an LLC. And yes, it won't be no more than 4 units

 In that case, as it relates to how many accounts you would/could have, will be somewhat reliant on how you plan to structure your asset protection. 

What I mean by that is: You will have a bank account for your LLC so that way any and all REI financials will transact through it. If you plan on holding more than just the one asset in the LLC, you can use that same account for those other assets that are being held by the same LLC.

If you plan on holding each asset you acquire in a different LLC, then that is where you would be holding numerous bank accounts to manage the investments.

Paying yourself: At a high-level view, all your doing is essentially like you mentioned, transferring funds from your LLC to your non-business account. Just make sure that when your operating agreement is drafted that you draw those funds based on the terms of the agreement, whatever that may be. When it comes to treating things like a business(because in this case it very much is) you want to follow what your OA states and maintain the entity for it to be worth the reason you have it.