← Real Estate Rookie
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- [00:00]
A
What if the thing that is silently sabotaging your real estate business has nothing to do with finding deals, getting financing, or even managing tenants? And everything to do with the fact that you have no idea where your money actually went?
- [00:15]
B
And what if the best person equipped to fix that problem is a CPA who also happens to be a real estate investor, a homeschooling mom, and someone who lost money on flips and lived to tell the tales.
- [00:31]
A
This is the Real Estate Real Estate Rookie Podcast. I'm Ashley Kerr.
- [00:34]
B
And I'm Tony J. Robinson. Let's give a big warm welcome to Grace. Grace, thanks for joining us on the Real Estate Rookie Podcast today.
- [00:39]
C
Hey, thank you guys so much for having me. I'm excited to be here today.
- [00:43]
A
Well, Grace, let's start at the beginning. So your husband was actually the one to convince you to buy your first property in 2018. So take us back to that conversation. And were you on board right away?
- [00:56]
C
Okay. So I was actually pregnant with my second child at the time. And since I am a cpa. Well, not since. It's really more like I am a cpa kind of, because I am highly risk averse. And so buying houses and investing like that was totally not on my radar. You know, I went to school to get a good job and then be a stay at home mom to homeschool my kids. Like, that was my plan. And buying houses was not part of that plan. And my husband had been kind of hinting for, for a while that he had kind of wanted to buy real estate and try that out. And every single time, I just kind of blew him off and was like, yeah, whatever, this is not part of our plan. We're, you know, we'll just. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, honey. And then in. Well, really in 2017. Cause we actually bought our first property in January of 2018. He said that he wanted to go ahead and buy a house. And I was like, well, I guess we have our first home already. We have one child. We're, you know, we're doing okay financially, so if something blows up, you know, we'll be okay. Not a big deal. Yeah, sure, go have fun. Meet with a realtor. Go buy a property. And so he went looking and he wound up finding one that was really close to our personal home. And my grandmother, kind soul that she was, she's passed away since then, but she decided to loan us the bulk of the money for that property. And my parents decided they wanted to get in on it with us, so we formed a partnership. And that's been Great. But we went ahead and bought that first property and we thought we were getting such a huge discount on it. And it was, it was retail. Like it was still just below market value. Now I know better, but at the time we were so excited. But because our financing was 30 year, 3% fixed interest with my grandmother, that's the best cash flowing property we've ever had. It was, it like worked out in all the best ways possible. But I, you know, at that time, we still didn't know what we were doing. So that was kind of the story of our first property. And after that point, I was starting to network and try and meet people who needed help with their books and their bookkeeping. And at the time, I wasn't really serving real estate investors. And we had just had our, you know, just one property. I was like, hey, this is my husband's deal, whatever. So that's. I was networking and since I was pregnant, I was like, I have a deadline on this of bringing in new clients. So I was like really hitting the pavement trying to get new clients. And that's when I fell in with the real estate investor crowd here in Oklahoma City metro area. And that's kind of when it took off because I started hearing the same, you know, burst strategy, go read rich dad, poor dad, you know, listen to bigger pockets, all of these different messages. And I started doing that and it, it just kind of went from there in my brain.
- [04:00]
B
Well, Grace, I definitely want to talk about the transition from that first year and how you scaled up from there, but I want to go back to something you said because, because it did really stand out to me. But you mentioned the, the thought process you went through when your husband said, hey, I'm ready to finally go buy a piece of real estate. And you said, like, hey, you kind of thought about, okay, where are we at financially today? We've already got, got the certain foundation. What is the worst case scenario? The, the reason I want to highlight that is that there are a lot of people listening today who have maybe been listening for a while and they've read all the books, they listened to the podcast, they've watched the YouTube videos, and they themselves have already been convinced that real estate investing is the right next step for their family. But they haven't yet been able to convince their spouse that real estate investing is the right next step for their family. So given that you were kind of the person who needed the convincing, what is your advice to those rookies who are listening that want to get their spouse on board with the idea of buying their first real estate investment for
- [04:57]
C
me now I did go ahead and allow him to buy that first deal and I thought, it's self contained, it'll pay for itself, you know, and if it goes under, we'll just lose that house and we won't do this ever again. No big deal. But really what made me okay with the idea of jumping in and buying more houses was hearing the same message from other people who had done it. So, and I know this is, this is a hard bridge for people to cross who are trying to convince their spouse to invest, because what happened was I went looking for something else and then found the answer of, oh, you really should be buying houses and investing in real estate from someone who wasn't my spouse. And then I came home and said, look what we can do, we can do this. We can, there's this thing called the brrrr strategy and we can do all this stuff. And he goes, yeah, that's what I've been telling you for years. So somehow he didn't, he didn't force me to go and talk to those people. But if, if they can see from the other people that you have been listening to or from, from the books you've been reading or from the podcasts or whatever, wherever you're gleaning your information, if, if there is something that can speak to them or even if you can find out, like what, why are they opposed to investing? Like for me it was, it was risky and I'm risk averse and now I know that it's probably the least amount of risk I could take in an investment if we do it right, you know, so if it's someone who's risk averse, you have to go and help them see why, like what actually reduces that risk and how you're going to overcome those risk scaling obstacles.
- [06:48]
A
So Grace, I think that advice goes with kids too, is like my kids, I will tell my kids the same thing over and over, but somebody else
- [06:55]
C
tells them and they're more like 100%. This is why we pay specialists to tell our children things that we have been telling them their whole lives. So yeah, costs a lot of money.
- [07:09]
A
So Grace, with that first property, you ended up turning it into a rental and you said it ended up cash flowing. Great. Did you try out any other strategies besides long term rentals?
- [07:19]
C
Yes. So we have done just a handful of flips, three to be exact. And all three of those did not go as intended and not in a good way. So our first one we did it was about an hour south of where we live. So that was the first zinger for me as I had two very small children and I wound up having to drive an hour one way to go to this property with like babies. And that was not ideal, but it also, we put it on the market right after Covid hit and that just totally blew everything. And we held that. We wound up holding that property for, I think it was like either just shy or just over a year. And it was supposed to be a four month long project. So yeah, that was a little irritating. And we lost $15,000 on that. And then our second property, we. We went from. We were supposed to make like $60,000 on it to losing 55k. So. And that was like a combination of. It was just we were supposed to fix up what was there, and then it turned into rebuilding the entire property except for the foundation and the stairs. So everything was brand spanking new. And the contractor that we had on it just kind of hung us out to dry on that. And everyone got paid except us. So. Yeah.
- [08:52]
A
And then you did it a third time, right?
- [08:54]
C
Yes. And so to recover from the first two flips, we were like, okay, we got one. We know what we're doing now. Like, we, we've got like a really. Because our list of repairs on that second flip was so long, we knew how much things cost. And on the higher end, because our contractor was fun like that. And so we decided to go ahead and do a third flip to try and recover. And we wound up losing another $15,000 because of the market change, like right in the middle of doing it. And also that house would have made a fantastic rental if we had not decided to flip it when we were doing all the repairs. So. But once we put too nice of finishes in it, we couldn't, we couldn't keep it, so we had to get rid of it.
- [09:39]
B
I, I appreciate you sharing the, the challenges, but I think for a lot of rookies that are listening, or maybe even the rookies that are like listening in the car with their spouses who they're trying to convince to invest in real estate, like the other spouses, like elbowing them, saying, see, I told you, like, real estate doesn't work. How do you, how do you stay motivated after back to. Back to back kind of punches in the face in real estate and, and not just kind of throw, you know, throwing the towel on, on real estate investing in general.
- [10:06]
C
So there have been many times when we have wanted to throw in the towel, however, and, and these Flips were not all back to back to back. Like, the first One was in 2020, and then the second was a couple of years later. And then this third one was a year ago. Yeah, about a year ago. And so it, you know, we do lick our wounds a little bit and try and recover and figure out what we're gonna do and then we go get another one. But I have had a mentor for the past few years in the area, and that has really helped because she's pushed us and encouraged us and hasn't really pushed us to like, go get a deal, go get a deal, go get a deal. But she's helped us when things get hard to not just wallow in despair and then. And she's also advised us on like, how to. Different strategies we can use to recover. So like, that initial house that we bought in 2018, we actually sold it this past year. We did not really want to. It was bittersweet. But because it had almost doubled in value, we were able to sell it and recover 100% from all of our losses from the flips. So that's kind of a, you know, we were able to wash things clean. And since we were in partnership with my parents on all of those, I wanted to do right by them and not have them just losing money. So. So we were able to do that and that was a good experience. And she helped advise us through that and, you know, said, you know what, in order to succeed in real estate, you are going to have to take your lumps and you're just going to have to keep going because it will. It will swing in. In two different directions.
- [11:50]
A
So now you also tried the Burr strategy on a property, but this actually went really successful for you. So tell us about this one.
- [11:58]
C
Yes. So thus far we've. We've purchased four. Four rentals. And we wanted to do the Burr strategy, but our lender wanted us to keep some skin in the game on the first two. So the types of loans we've been getting, they fund the purchase price and the repairs up to a certain percentage. And the first bank that we were working with would only do it up to 80%, but we would. It's the lesser of 80% of ARV or 90% of whatever we put in. So we still had to leave in 10%. So it wasn't a true BR. And then. So we did that twice. And then we got with another bank and this bank didn't require us to leave the 10% in. And that was the first time. And I was like, oh, we act. We actually get to do a burn. I don't have to leave any money in this. This is so fantastic. So we, we did that and that's been great. So, yeah, it just, it just depends on financing.
- [12:59]
B
Well, Grace, one, follow up on that, right? A lot of folks, when they get One Direction from one lender, they, they kind of take that as the gospel. Okay, this, this is, this is what it is. Do you like, like, was it just two lenders that you talked to? How many lenders did you have to maybe communicate with to find the one that actually solved that problem for you?
- [13:16]
C
Okay. Okay. So here's the other thing. Yes, I do have a mentor and she tells me all the right things to do. I don't always listen to my mentor, which is usually not the right thing to do. So, you know, you should listen to your mentor. And so what they advise is to, you know, be talking to five lenders at a time, all the time. And you know, you date your lender, take them out to lunch, do all those things and really shop around. And I didn't really do that. I am, I don't know if it comes across or not, but I am actually an introvert. And you know, I am an accountant. I like to be in my hole and count my beans. So I tend to not like going out and reaching out to potential lenders. And that is my job in our real estate investing business. My husband goes out and finds the deals and I make sure they close. So financing is really my, in my wheelhouse and I haven't done the best job of finding various lenders to talk to. So I try to make all the deals work with either one or two different lenders that we have in our pocket. So that's, that's kind of where that is. So ideally I should be going out and talking to a bunch of different lenders, but I have mostly just used my network and find out the best options that everyone else is getting and go talk to that one bank.
- [14:36]
B
Yeah, I like that approach. And just for the rookies that are listening, I do think there's a lot of value in speaking to as many lenders as possible as you go through this process. Because although every lender is selling you a mortgage, they all have very different versions and flavors and types of products they can sell you in terms of what that mortgage looks like at the end of the day. And I, I have a student that I'm working with right now who just bought a short term rental in, in somewhere in Colorado. I can't remember the exact city, but he basically has a connection with the local bank that he knows that will fund 100% of his purchase and his renovation. As long as the spread between what he's buying it for, like, is all in cost and what the after repair value is, as long as there's a big enough spread there, they'll fund everything. Right? And that's actually how I bought my first deal was I found a bank, they gave me 100% of my purchase price and my renovation costs, but it was only because the spread between that total all in cost and what the property is going to be worth was big enough. But not every bank can do that, right? So I think the more lenders you can talk to, the more options you have, the more flexibility you have to actually get some of these deals closed. So. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but when we get back, Grace is going to get into the nitty gritty details of what she does. And honestly, it's something that I wish someone had explained to me when I was buying my first property. So we'll be right back after this.
- [15:51]
D
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- [17:00]
A
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- [18:08]
D
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- [18:49]
A
So Grace, let's get into this thing that makes you really unique on this show, the bookkeeping side. I want our listeners to really understand why this matters so much, especially early on. So most investors may not know a lot about bookkeeping unless they're like you and have a background as a cpa. And they may not be able to afford to outsource this with just one rental property. So what exactly does bookkeeping cost them and what can go wrong if you don't have a bookkeeping system in place?
- [19:20]
C
Okay, so when you are new and you only have one property or no property, or you know, really less than 5, you have a couple of options. You can either outsource or you can try and do it yourself if you try to outsource. Now, there are bookkeeping firms out there that do advertise like we'll do your bookkeeping for a hundred bucks a month. Run away screaming, don't, don't trust that they probably aren't doing the best job that they should be doing. But if you're going to get a quality bookkeeper to outsource to that has a team and the right tools. It's going to be $500 a month minimum. That's like the basic, basic, basic clients. So you're looking at $500 a month minimum to hire a bookkeeper. And if you have less than five properties, you probably can't afford that quite yet. Or you could, but you'd be at zero in your cash flow and you wouldn't have anything for repairs. So you could do it yourself. That's the other option, which is a great option. But like Ashley was saying, if you're a new real estate investor, most oftentimes you are not also going to have a bookkeeping background. I'm weird because I do so and I love bookkeeping and a lot of investors just want to stab their eye with a fork rather than do bookkeeping. So. Which I totally get. I work with a lot of people like that. So that can also be expensive or it can be less expensive depending on how you go about it. Now you can, you know, do the different types of software that advertise that they'll do it for you or they have a lot of AI capabilities and a lot of stuff like that. And those can be valuable tools. However, if you don't have already have the understanding of what the really the bits and pieces that need to go into that system and what information is needed in that system. Let me rephrase that. If you don't know already have the knowledge base to know what needs to go into a bookkeeping system, you are not going to get quality financial statements. And if you don't even know what needs to go on your financial statements to show to your tax accountant or your lenders or how to make strategic decisions, then you're going to get whatever goes into it and who knows what that is. So my advice is to find someone that can train you on how to do your own bookkeeping first. And that way you can develop your own system that is custom and tailored to your business and your strategy. Whether you are flipping, whether you're doing buy and hold or you're doing wholesaling, maybe you're doing short term rentals, maybe you're doing apartments. I don't know what you're doing, but find something, someone that can train you on how to do specifically that. You can build your own system and then when you scale large enough, you can hand that on a silver platter to a bookkeeper. And it won't be an expensive transition because usually you'll have investors that have done it themselves and they've got some weird system going on. That may work for them maybe, but they don't know whether or not it truly does. And then once they get to the point where they can outsource it to a bookkeeper, they're handing them a paper bag full of who knows what, and the bookkeeper has to take what they have. Usually there is an extensive cleanup that is involved in that, and that is, you know, usually thousands and thousands of dollars. And then on top of that, you've got, you know, the minimum $500 a month and on and on and on. So if you can eliminate that cleanup process once you're ready to outsource, once you, if you have built the system yourself and then outsourced, that is the way to go. Unfortunately, if you look around, a lot of accountants or bookkeepers aren't really willing to teach investors how to do their own bookkeeping. And that's where I come in.
- [23:20]
A
Well, Grace, that was going to be my next question as to do you think, like, okay, for someone like me who's very introverted, I hide when the delivery person is at my house and I would not, you know, want to go and sit with someone sharing the computer screen training me to teach me how to do something. I'd rather do it on my own or figure out, do you think AI is a good resource for somebody to learn the basics of bookkeeping? Or what are some free resources that are out there that a rookie listener could start with to understand some of these basics?
- [23:55]
C
Okay, okay, so there are free resources. Then again, they are the price of free. So sometimes you get what you pay for. So you do have to go in with that caveat. Asking Chat GPT some questions can be helpful, but ChatGPT or, you know, those other AI softwares, they do tend to hallucinate. So they might give you something that is totally made up and you will have no idea because it sounds great. When ChatGPT tells you to do something, usually you can go to YouTube, there are some different content producers out there that will give you different bookkeeping advice and kind of show you the, the ins and outs of bookkeeping for real estate investing, you're probably not going to find. I actually haven't looked in a while, but I haven't found anyone that will show you exactly how to set it all up. And then if you've got anything weird going on, like creative financing or something like that, you're not going to find that really in the free Space. So.
- [25:01]
A
So as a rookie listener, like, what are the first three things you should implement in your business or maybe your team? So it seems like a bookkeeper is a good person or to learn it yourself is a. It's something that you should implement. What other two things have you done in your real estate business? Do you that you think you need? Either have this person on your team or you need to implement getting started with your first property.
- [25:28]
C
Really, a mentor is the number one person. Honestly, having a mentor has saved us so much time and effort. Yeah, we've taken our lumps, but those were not near as painful as they could have been if we hadn't had her. So. And, and having the community of investors that we can go to and ask questions of that has also been extremely, extremely valuable. So number one is a mentor. They will cut away so much of your learning time if you can have someone who's already done it and can tell you what to do. Second, you do need a tax accountant early on, if you go look at a schedule E or a Schedule C and kind of figure you can kind of figure things out yourself and you might be able to find some answers doing some online research. But really, if you find a tax CPA that specializes in real estate specifically, particularly if you plan on growing, then you're going to want one in your corner anyway. So go ahead and get that started. That's really. Those are the two main people that I would say the third is probably a good attorney for real estate in particular. So I know that there are sometimes templates for like, leases and things like that online. I know that my, my mentor helps us with some of our templates for leases and other documents, contracts, and things like that. But if you don't have a mentor that has a lot of that knowledge and they don't have their own legal counsel as well helping them draft those templates, then you need to go find someone yourself who can help you with that. So those are the three people that I would say the first three that you need outside of a good contractor, everybody needs a good contractor.
- [27:25]
B
So inside of your portfolio. Grace, obviously, given your CPA background, I'm sure you're using some sort of accounting software. But I guess two things I want to know for the rookie who's just getting started, what bookkeeping software do you recommend? Because for me, QuickBooks is like, very cumbersome. There's a lot that's going on in there and, you know, just kind of like makes my eyes glaze over. So you like what would Be an easier tool for a rookie to use. And then just in the rest of your business and the rest of your portfolio, what other tools and software are you using to help manage the rest of your business?
- [27:57]
C
Okay, for accounting software specifically, there is a difference between property management software and bookkeeping software. Most softwares, whether it is bookkeeping software or it is property management software, they will tell you that they can handle both sides of that. They're usually lying. QuickBooks is not a good property management software. And I have yet to see a property management software that can also handle your bookkeeping correctly and give you corporate well rounded level financial statements. They're just not going to track everything that needs to be tracked. For financial statements, they will track, you know, cash flow and things like that and how your rentals are doing, but they may not track your long term liabilities or they may not track your depreciation schedule. They may not track, you know, there's a bunch of your equity stack, there's a whole bunch of other things that they're not going to have in them. So that's my number one piece of advice is make sure you have both a property management software, whether it's something free, just for rent collection and maintenance requests, you can do that. Or if it's something more robust, you can do either one, but also have an accounting software. And yes, I am a QuickBooks girl, so I've been one. I've been with them for a very, very long time. It's been like over 15 years at this point. So they have. Intuit has done some very interesting things over the last 15 years with moving everything online and making it a subscription and everybody hates that. I am. You are not alone. I don't like it either. However, they are the big dog on the block for a reason. And thus far I have yet to see an accounting software that does it better than they do now. If there is a better one, great. I haven't seen it. There is, there is one that I have heard buzz about but I haven't used it yet. So I can't really speak, speak to that. So I'm not, I'm not going to go into it here just because I don't want to put something out there that I haven't used personally. So. But yeah, QuickBooks, like you said, it is cumbersome because it is made, they say it's made for small business owners, but really it's like they try, but really you kind of need to be an accountant or a bookkeeper to really know how to Use it. So that's what I do actually is I train. I train people who don't know how to use QuickBooks how to use it and I only show them what they need to know. You don't need everything in QuickBooks.
- [30:31]
A
So I was just going to say what about the property management software piece? What are you using for that?
- [30:37]
C
Right now we're just using apartments.com just because we only use it for rent collection. We don't have that very many rentals right now. So we manage all tenant requests and everything just with a Google voice number and they text us. It's really not a. Not like super robust yet. Once we get a few more properties under our belt, I know that we're going to have to switch to something else. But for right now it works great.
- [31:02]
A
We get quite a few guests on here that use apartments.com it's usually a good mix of turbo tenant and rent. Ready are the two big ones for rookie investors. But we do get a lot of apartments.com avail is another one that I hear talk about. But I, I think those are usually like the, the major four. And then baselane has come a long way. I use them for the bookkeeping side but they also have rent collection now and stuff like that too. But it's not.
- [31:30]
C
Which, which one did you say?
- [31:32]
A
Baselane Baseline.
- [31:33]
C
Okay.
- [31:34]
A
And then Tony, you use Relay for a lot of your bookkeeping, right?
- [31:39]
B
More so for the business banking. But we, we use QuickBooks or my. My bookkeeper uses QuickBooks for the actual bookkeeping.
- [31:44]
D
Yeah.
- [31:44]
C
Another thing about QuickBooks, one of the reasons they're also still the big dog is because most tax accountants are using QuickBooks. And so it's a lot easier for them to know what you're giving them if you're just giving them access to your QuickBooks file. So it, that's just kind of like an admin thing that kind of just makes it easier if you are using QuickBooks.
- [32:07]
A
Okay, we're going to take our last short break but when we come back, I want to get into to more of Grace's story in her rental properties. We'll be right back. When you buy your first rental property, there's usually a moment right before you pull the trigger where your brain starts spiraling a little. What if I'm making a mistake? What if I can't figure this out? What if this whole thing becomes way more complicated than I expected? Honestly, building any business feels like that at first. And for a lot of investors that next step is creating a brand, a website or even a business around what they're building. And I've learned this myself. Whether it's real estate, building a brand, launching a side business, or creating something online, the hardest part is usually just getting started before you feel fully ready. As a consumer, I use Shopify powered stores all the time. Chances are you do too. Some of the brands I buy from regularly run on Shopify, and you probably wouldn't even know it because everything just works. The checkout is smooth, the experience is easy, and that's exactly what you want if you're building a business and trying to earn customers trust. That's why Shopify makes so much sense. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from brands just getting started to household names. You can build a professional online store with ready to use templates that actually look good even if you're not tech style savvy. Shopify also has AI tools that help write product descriptions, page headlines, and even improve product photography. And instead of juggling five different platforms, Shopify puts everything in one place, from payments to inventory to analytics. Plus, Shopify helps you market your business with easy email and social media campaigns so you can actually reach customers. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com rookie go to shopify.com rookie that's shopify.com rookie billion dollar
- [34:16]
D
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- [36:50]
A
Okay, and welcome back. So Grace, if we could go back to the version of you who just bought that first house in 2018 with your parents and asking your grandmother for seller financing, what is something that you would tell yourself? And maybe it's something that you would do different or handle a situation differently. What would you change if you could
- [37:14]
C
go back about that particular experience? I honestly don't think I would change anything because we were able to learn so much through it. Actually, no, I would change one thing come to think of it, something that we are trying to change right now. So going into business with family has its own challenges. And honestly, being in business with my parents has been a net positive thing. We have all learned a lot and it has been great. However, we are having issues now because they would prefer to move into a financing capacity rather than an equity holding capacity in the business. And getting them out of the partnership as, you know, shareholders, it isn't. It is an S Corp. So getting them out of the partnership as shareholders is proving to be challenging from a tax standpoint.
- [38:24]
A
I'm curious, why did you decide on doing an S Corp instead of an llc.
- [38:30]
C
I know that's, that's the question that I get as a cpa. I knew better and I did it anyway. Okay, so we did have a reason. Yeah, I just, I laugh at myself every time and it's great fun. It's a good joke. But no, so the reason we did it is because my husband, we were going to buy, you know, 20 properties and put them in this S Corp and then my husband was going to be the property manager. And at the time we didn't really know what we were doing even though, okay, so CPA does not stand for knows everything. So it's not even the right letters.
- [39:06]
A
So.
- [39:07]
C
But at the time I, that's what we were going to do. He was going to manage everything and we were going to pay his W2 salary from, from that entity. And so we were like, let's just dump the properties in there too. Why not? Yeah, don't, don't do that.
- [39:21]
B
But really quickly, for folks who, who don't like, maybe understand, like for us, we have all of our active income flows through an S Corp. All of our passive real estate income flows through like a traditional llc. Right. So like what is the, what is the tax maybe benefit or disadvantage disadvantages of collecting passive income through an S Corp?
- [39:42]
C
Okay, y' all put this question on me. So, okay, so another thing about me is I am actually not a tax cpa. So I took that section of the CPA exam several like over a decade ago and I passed it and was like, never make me file a tax return ever again. So, so that's another thing. My mother in law is a tax CPA and she does my taxes. Thank the Lord I found her son. But so with that caveat. So the tax consequences of having an S corp. Thus far we haven't had any tax consequences of having an escort because we haven't actually made a whole lot of money because we also did the flips through the S Corp. However, because we've had sustained losses. And with an S Corp, you know, you have to have proportional contributions and distributions. So if one partner takes something out of the business, all of the partners have to take take something out proportional to their ownership. And we each have 25%. So everybody have to take the equal amount or put in equal amounts. So funding the business has been a challenge because I would rather not loan the business money and have to pay myself interest. But I can't make an equity contribution because then my parents would. So that's, that's really more the issue that We've had. And so they have loaned the business extra money, my parents have and they've made interest off of it and that's been fine. We've been able to fund their retirement which is really one of the goals of that business when we set that up. But yeah, getting it to where we can buy their shares back, that's just been a whole thing. And we only have three properties in there right now. So I'm so glad it's not more.
- [41:41]
A
Well, let me ask about the financing piece on that.
- [41:44]
C
It is.
- [41:44]
A
Is it more difficult to get financing because it isn't an S corp compared to if you held it as an LLC or in your personal name?
- [41:53]
C
No, no, it's not. I mean we've had to, we all turn in our personal financial statements. That honestly has been. Because my parents, they, they typically, they wanted in but they didn't want to have to do anything with it which they just wanted to sit and watch us have fun. And so getting their personal financial statements and all of that ready every year, the bank that we are currently using doesn't require that. Which is great for me because I was having to manage all of that and they just, my parents just didn't want to do it. They didn't want to have to provide wet signatures on everything and you know, so that was a hassle. But, but as far as getting financing. No, it wasn't an issue at all.
- [42:37]
A
Yeah, I didn't know about that. So I was just curious.
- [42:40]
C
Yeah, no, they were looking at our personal position and then they would also look at the financials, the financials and tax return returns of the business and it, it all went fine. So.
- [42:50]
B
Yeah, and Nasha, I think the reason why. And you know guys, I'm not a, I'm not a cpa. I'm not, I'm not even anywhere near that. But my understanding is that the, the S Corp is simply like a tax designation. So you're still an llc. It's like when you go to get lending or financing from the bank, they're still looking at you like they would any, any other llc. It's just like a tax designation.
- [43:07]
A
Yes, to help you with self employment taxes if you have.
- [43:12]
C
Yes, it helps you with self employment tax so you can pay yourself a rage and not have to pay that, you know and yes, and all of that. It is a great tool but it is not a great tool when you put your assets in it. Just don't put assets in it.
- [43:27]
A
Well Grace, thank you so much for joining us today on Real Estate Rookie. Where can people reach out to you and find out more information about your real estate journey?
- [43:35]
C
Well, I am on Facebook. My professional profile is G. Wills, cpa or you can find me with that same handle on Instagram. I'm also there and then my email address is gwillillcpamail. Com.
- [43:51]
A
Grace thank you so much. We really enjoyed hearing your story and learning about how to do better bookkeeping. I'm Ashley, he's Tony and we'll see you guys on the next episode.
- [44:01]
B
Hey rookies, if you're watching this, we want you to apply to be a guest on the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. That's right. Ashley and I are looking for amazing stories just like yours to be a part of our Real Estate Rookie Podcast. Now look, you don't need to be an expert. You don't need to have done thousands of deals. Even if you've done one deal, your story could help inspire the next listener
- [44:20]
A
as a rookie investor. Especially if you just got your first deal. It is all fresh in your minds and you are the best person to tell your story. Give your experience on how you got it done to help someone else get their first deal.
- [44:32]
B
So head over to biggerpockets.com guest if you want to be a part of our show again, that's biggerpockets.com and we'd love to have you on.
- [44:41]
A
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