7 things you should consider when choosing a trustworthy commission advance company
2023 IRS Audit Triggers for Real Estate Agents
While you may be celebrating, or hoping for better things to come the following year, your income (or profit) is almost always in an inverse relationship with your tax obligations. While it’s better to owe a lot in tax than owe none, you will want to make sure that you are “in the know” with regard to the new tax law. With that in mind, here are some audit triggers as well as some changes to the tax law to help get you off on the right track.
IRS and State Audit Triggers
1. Your numbers don’t match. Make sure your 1099’s and W-2’s match up to what’s being reported to the IRS. This is the fastest way to get a letter from the IRS because the matching is automated and is one of the first things they look at.
2. You made a lot of money this past year. This one is simple, and it is good. You want to make a lot of money. However, increasing your income also increases the amount of your income the IRS could stand to gain by auditing you, if they think you aren’t being honest with your deductions. If you are making a lot of money during the year, be very meticulous with your record keeping, and make sure you can prove everything that you are taking as a deduction.
3. You made a lot less money this past year. This is not as good. If you made a lot less money, you probably also have a lot less of it laying around to pay taxes with, so an audit could be extra devastating. If you are legitimately reporting all income, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about, but if there’s a chance you might not have reported everything (even by accident), this won’t look good in an audit. It is best to keep meticulous records of all income so that you can show the accurate income amount in case the IRS comes knocking.
4. You are self-employed. If you are in real estate, this likely applies to you. Even if you’ve set up your business as a corporation or an LLC and pay yourself that way, you will still fall into a higher risk category than someone earning a paycheck from a large company. There’s nothing you can do about this, but you can be extra cautious about the deductions you take, as well as ensuring you pay all of your tax liability in a timely manner, with quarterly payments made if possible.
5. You deduct your home office and/or vehicle. You should! But you have to do this one right. You should get clear with your CPA on exactly how much is allowable for home office and vehicle deductions, as going over these thresholds can be a red flag that results in an audit, regardless of how much income you make. Be very careful to follow these guidelines.
- Client Meals are Tax Deductable.For only 2021 and 2022 meals with clients are 100% tax deductible. The full cost of the business-related food and beverage purchase from a restaurant. Otherwise, years it’s only been 50% deductible.
To qualify for the enhanced deduction:
- The business owner or an employee of the business must be present when food or beverages are provided.
- Meals must be from restaurants, which includes businesses that prepare and sell food or beverages to retail customers for immediate on-premises or off-premises consumption.
- Payment or billing for the food and beverages occurs after December 31, 2020, and before January 1, 2023.
- The expense cannot be lavish or extravagant.
Here’s what business owners need to know about certain costs:
- The cost of the meal can include taxes and tips.
- The cost of transportation to and from the meal isn’t part of the cost of a business meal.
Entertainment events
Business owners may be able to deduct the costs of meals and beverages provided during an entertainment event if either of these apply:
- the purchase of the food and beverages occurs separately from the entertainment
- the cost of the food and beverages is separate from the cost of the entertainment on one or more bills, invoices, or receipts.
7. Are Commission Advances deductible? Generally the fee incurred would be deductible, but check with your CPA to confirm. A commission Advance is usually considered a business expense but improper documentation of this may lead to an unnecessary audit.
8. You were particularly generous this year! The IRS is always on the lookout for people who inflate their charitable donations and use a range based off a percent of income that is reasonable.
9. Big Deductions? Is one or two of your deductions exceptionally large and outside of the norm for your industry, income bracket or year over year trend.
10. Suspicious Round Numbers? Suspiciously round numbers on your returns will raise and auditor’s eyebrow.
11. Tax Credits? Claiming Tax Credits that aren’t yours.
Bottom line if you have questions about a deduction that you can ask your CPA, it is better to ask them instead of going through an audit after the fact.
About Us: Express Cash Flow provides commission advances for real estate agents and brokers. Check us out at www.ExpressCashFlow.com or call us at 844-818-2274.
10 Best Real Estate Recruiting Tips for Brokers
Best real estate recruiting tips for brokers and teams on a minimal budget! Get some new ideas and grow your business.
Expanding your office with a hands-on marketing and tracking approach can be extremely cost effective and efficient. If you have some support behind you make it a team effort and delegate some of the ideas below. Before you start on the 10 best real estate recruiting tips get a handle on your strategy:
- Strategize on what type of agents will fit your culture the best; i.e.: new or established agents. Do you want self-starters or needy agents that ask you a lot of “How about this”, “What if this happens” questions?
- Have a full media profile for yourself and your company. Actively use the account by posting about yourself, your brand, agents, properties, trends and other news. Outsource this function to an admin/marketing person if needed.
- The best real estate recruiting starts with…tracking every recruiting activity such as interested calls, phone interviews, in-person interview and offers made in an excel spreadsheet every week so you can see your activity and what your spending money on.
- Go beyond compensation, make agents want to work for you and in your office. The highest commission split, biggest marketing budgets and lowest E&O insurance premiums are not all that matter. Make an exciting and welcoming environment for your new and existing agents. Introduce them to your preferred title, escrow, and insurance reps. Discuss tools and training that have worked in the past and open opportunities.
- How much is this recruiting going to cost you in marketing, on-boarding, training and materials? If your escrows do get delayed consider a commission advance to help with expenses from Express Cash Flow at ExpressCashFlow.com. They will provide up to 75% of your net commissions within 4 hours.
10 Best Real Estate Recruiting:
1. Friends, Family and Associates
Post on social media that your looking to expand and grow your office. Tell everyone! What are the benefits to working with you and in your office?
2. Hold an office contest
Encourage your agents to setup appointments for you with potential prospects and reward them with $250 on each new hire. Or maybe the prize is dinner with you or just recognition in front of the entire office.
3. Targeted Mailings
Targeted mailings could increase your brand awareness but the list needs to be very focused so that the conversion rate is higher to offset the costs.
4. Local Charities
Get involved in local charities and attempt to serve on a few non-related real estate boards in your community. Learn to tell success stories about past clients and how you worked in different situations. Everyone wants to hear good stories so rehearse them for when you have a few minutes before a meeting starts, dinner conversation or just telling friends.
5. Become Friends
Get to know agents from competitors in your area. Comment on their posts. Are they active producers? Work ethic? Values?
6. Open Houses
Open houses are a great way to meet other agents in a comfortable setting. Introduce yourself, hand out business cards and tell them what’s unique about your company, marketing, and culture. Always follow-up, it might take 2 months or 2 years but plant your seed!
7. Recruiting Landing Page on Your Website
Have a landing page for prospective agents to learn more about your business and fill-out a small questionnaire.
8. Ask your past Clients
Ask your past clients (buyers or sellers) if they know anyone looking for a new career? Email, phone call, text message, etc. Maybe it’s a niece that is just graduating college, someone that is in retirement looking for part-time work, a teacher that has the summers off and looking for a pay raise? You won’t know if you don’t ask.
9. Community events – 4th of July, Open House, New Shopping Center, etc
Have a table with some free popcorn, give aways from the 99-cent store or kids toys with your contact information. This is especially important if its in your “farm” neighborhood.
10. Senior Centers
The best real estate recruiting tip! You may think that once people are in a Senior Center they might not need a real estate agent but it is truly the office administrators that you might want to deal with. What happens when a couple needs to move into senior center and they have to put up the deposit and sell their house? The office administrators usually recommends a real estate agent or two in their area that can sell their house quickly for top dollar…THAT NEEDS TO BE YOU OR YOUR AGENTS! Obviously, you might have to pay a referral fee but you should come out on top!
Hashtags: #RealEstate #Broker, #realtor #realtorlife #realtors #luxuryrealtor #topproducer #realestateagent #realtormarketing #recruiting
Qualified Opportunity Zones Tax Savings
Did you know that there is now a better method of deferring capital gains tax on appreciated assets than a 1031 exchange? Even better than that, did you know that it is possible to sell massively appreciated real estate free of any capital gains tax whatsoever? Answer Qualified Opportunity Zones!
One of the lesser discussed and lesser known aspects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was the formation of Qualified Opportunity Zones (QOZ) and Qualified Opportunity Funds (QOF). It’s on page 130, and doesn’t directly affect you unless you have large quantities of capital gains on which you’d rather not be taxed, so I’ll forgive you if you haven’t heard of it until now.
If that situation applies to you though, it is worth looking into. But how do you know if the situation applies to you, what is a QOF and what is a QOZ? Glad you asked- that’s what I’m here to answer.
There are two sides to this legislation that can benefit different folks in different ways. Let’s first start with people who have recently sold an appreciated asset and are going to have a capital gain. That might already be some of you, and that may be others of you in the future.
In the past, if you’ve sold this appreciated asset (let’s assume it is real estate), your only option to defer capital gains via a 1031 Exchange, in which you must relinquish your appreciated asset and purchase a replacement asset within both a finite period of time and a stringent set of guidelines. The problem inherent in doing that, though, is that if you are picking a particularly good time to realize your gains (seller’s market!), guess what you’re going to need to do in order to defer your capital gains? You guessed it, buy into that same market.
Now there are ways around this, you can sell in an “A” market and buy in a “C” market, or you can sell a particular type of property (residential) and buy a different type of property (Industrial?) via which you will be able to achieve a higher yield. Or you could turn one multi-family property in CA into 85 single family rentals in Ohio, which I’ve helped facilitate and absolutely do not recommend for everyone.
But let’s say you don’t want to do any of that. Let’s say you just want to not pay your capital gains tax at all. Do these opportunity zones let you do that?
Well… kind of.
Here is exactly what the IRS has to say about Qualified Opportunity Zones:
Q. How do Qualified Opportunity Zones spur economic development?
A. Opportunity Zones are designed to spur economic development by providing tax benefits to investors. First, investors can defer tax on any prior gains until the earlier of the date on which an investment is sold or exchanged, or December 31, 2026, so long as the gain is reinvested in a Qualified Opportunity Fund. Second, if the investor holds the investment in the Opportunity Fund for at least ten years, the investor would be eligible for an increase in basis equal to the fair market value of the investment on the date that the investment is sold or exchanged.
Ok, so that’s a lot to unpack, and you can read more about what the IRS thinks are the important questions here, but essentially what the benefits actually are:
- You can defer your gain until 12/31/2026
- If you hold the reinvested funds via the QOF into QOZ assets for a minimum of 5 years, your basis in the original transaction increases by 10%, and if you hold for 7 years, you get an additional 5%, for a total of a 15% decrease in your initial liability (not bad!)
- If you hold the investment for a minimum of 10 years, your basis upon sale is equal to your sales price.
I’ll go ahead and comment on those- 1 and 2 are cool if you’re talking about large dollars, but only really moves the needle if you are talking about very large numbers. 3 is a different story- 3 says that if you a buy a property through a QOF, don’t sell it for 10 years (or more), you pay no tax on the appreciation in that period. This is an astounding bit of legislation, especially for those of us familiar with development and entitlements- things that generally take a while to accomplish, and see substantial amounts of profit (much of which is typically eaten up by capital gains tax).
If you’re like me, it might take a minute to fully appreciate the impact of that. That means that if you buy a property in a QOZ via the captive capital gain in your QOF and hold it for 10 years, or more, your gain upon sale is entirely tax fee. No two ways about it. Just to make sure though- let’s walk through an example.
Let’s say that you sell your appreciated asset and that creates a capital gain of $2 Million. You then invest that gain in a QOF, and that QOF buys property in a QOZ (also for $2 Million).
You then wait the requisite ten years (and remember, after year 8, the amount you are taxed on decreases to $1.7 M), and your property is now worth $5M. The additional $3M gain is now not going to have any capital gains at all. Zero. $3M of tax-free gain… the holy grail of real estate investment (or any investment).
Ok, so these sound pretty cool? Where are they?
Well, here. And while the zones are certainly in places that you might expect them, they are also in a number of places you might not expect. Huntington Beach? Costa Mesa? San Clemente? These aren’t exactly areas that are screaming for outside capital to renovate a forgotten about and forlorn metropolis. But, through the miracles of bipartisan legislation, they were included.
If you would like to know more about Qualified Opportunity Zones and how to best take advantage of this new and unique opportunity, feel free to reach out and we can connect on the topic.
Express Cash Flow – www.ExpressCashFlow.com
Real Estate Agent Recruiting Tactics
We all know that agent recruiting is the life blood of any successful real estate office, and it should be the goal to recruit the most, best agents. But how does a real estate brokerage actually go about doing this? Here are some of the tactics used by the most successful recruiters from around the world.
- Some of the best agent recruiting is done by your current agents! Ask your agents whom they’ve enjoyed working with on past transactions, and whom they look up to at other offices. Then provide incentives (trips, meals, a boost in their split) for the agents that provide you with the best referrals.
- Get involved with charities and your local community. Sometimes the best way to find good real estate talent is in the most unlikely of places, and being involved in communities outside of your industry will help you grow your network immensely.
- Get involved in communities in your industry, too! Hold a new agent training for your local board, and make sure to follow up with any qualified candidates. Have your agents support you in this endeavor, and encourage them to follow up as well.
- Email all of your top recruiting targets with their end of year sales and what they could have made working for you- NOTE: make sure you are confident of their current splits and that this would compare favorably before sending.
- Organize an outing or mixer for some of your top agents to mingle and socialize with your top recruits, so the recruits can get a feel for what will allow them to continue to grow and succeed.
- Everyone wants to grow their network, make sure you not only connect with your potential recruits on social media, but ensure that you impact your relationship with them positively.
Once you’ve had a chance to implement all of these tips, agent recruiting will no longer be about hunting whatever agents you are able to convince they should switch to you, but rather farming your various networks for the most, best agents around.
Happy recruiting!
Best Mortgage In America
Mortgage Today
Applying for a mortgage can be a tough task for aspiring homeowners. Especially so for borrowers with low to moderate incomes or perhaps less than stellar credit. While the availability of credit in the early-mid 2000s made it possible to get a mortgage, this was irresponsible. These types of mortgages would typically include a teaser rate, eventually leading to payment shock.
These days, NACA seeks to avoid that mess. In addition to a wide depth of resources available to homebuyers to ensure they get the best possible deal, NACA also provides what has been dubbed the “Best Mortgage In America”. This means that qualified borrowers will be able to take advantage of the following mortgage perks NACA has to offer:
- No down payment
- No closing costs
- Below market interest rates
- No Points
- Buy-downs to near-zero interest rates
- No fees
Seem too good to be true? For once, it isn’t! What’s more, NACA is not a program only available to people with certain income or credit scenarios, it is available to all qualified borrowers who do not currently own a home! Even if the desired property requires more renovation than the buyer can afford, NACA will finance that renovation as well to allow the buyer to purchase their dream home, even if it is a fixer-upper.
This underutilized and underpublicized product is a great tool in the tool belt of first time homebuyers and realtors alike who are striving to get the best deal.
You can read more about the different programs available at www.NACA.com.
About Us:
Express Cash Flow – Commission advances for real estate agents and brokers www.ExpressCashFlow.com.
Real Estate Negotiation
Much is often made of being the best salesperson, or persuading the other party in a negotiation to conform to your every desire. However, not all negotiations are a zero sum game, requiring one party to lose exactly as much as the other party wins. In real estate negotiation, this is in fact very rarely the case. It is very uncommon for a lopsided negotiation the result of one intelligent and informed party persuading another intelligent and informed party to do something against their will. Much more common is the scenario in which a solution is created to solve a problem, and both parties come out ahead. That’s what we’ll be focusing on here.
There are 3 basic principles to adhere to when entering a real estate negotiation:
1: Know the problem
2: Ensure the other party commits to a structure first
3: Keep the negotiation alive
Know the Problem
All transactions take place because two parties wanted to change their status quo. Unlike financial markets though, the motivations for real estate transactions are not always as transparent. Buying at the lowest point and selling at the highest are not always the primary concern for transaction participants, there may be other things in play, such as the desire to live in a specific neighborhood or style of home. On the other side, the desire to sell a home may be driven by needing to pay off other expenses, increasing motivation beyond the desire to achieve the highest price. If this is the case, the driving factor in the negotiation is not price at all; it is a bill that needs to be paid. Finding out exactly how much that bill is, in a nice way, can go a long way towards getting the best result on the buyer side (the lowest price). Conversely, there might be a tax issue caused that either requires the buyer to close very quickly or the seller to prefer to take a deferred payment (carry back), having this flexibility as a buyer will allow the lowest possible price.
First Mover Disadvantage
There are, unsurprisingly, many schools of thought on negotiation. While it is true that as a seller, you have a list price which theoretically anchors the real estate negotiation, it is also the case that both buyer and seller can force the other party to commit to a structure first, and that there is an advantage in doing so. As a seller, this is easy. Simply let the buyer make an offer, and if you are not comfortable with the structure, require (via a counter offer) that the buyer restructure their offer on more suitable terms. Notice, that while price is one of the issues to figure out in a negotiation, it certainly isn’t the only one. Many times too much of a focus on price will adversely affect other terms, such as who pays for services such as escrow, title, or repairs. As a buyer, it is trickier to make the seller commit first, but can be done. The approach that works best is to come up with an offer that is low enough that the seller must counter, but not so low that the seller is offended and ignores it completely. Striking this balance can be challenging, but the rewards make it very much worth trying for.
Keep the Real Esate Negotiation Going
This seems like a simple point, but it can often be difficult to remember during a contentious negotiation. No matter how badly you want something, and no matter how far apart you are from the other party, you are always closer to putting a deal together if talks remain open. It can be very tempting to respond with an emotional counter offer (taking only a nominal amount off the listing price, writing in all caps, etc), but anything that is done to antagonize the other party will usually come back in the form of a lost negotiation. So, whether you take the time to thoroughly respond to an offer you might think is frivolous, or call for clarification when there starts to be a disconnect as opposed to shutting of lines of communication, it can only help. This is one instance where a real estate negotiation is not a zero sum game, and everyone benefits if the negotiation continues.
About Us:
Express Cash Flow provides commission advances for real estate agents and brokers. Check us out at www.ExpressCashFlow.com or call us at 844-818-2274.