Chicago Real Estate Investing Blog

By Aaron Zimmerman

Documents You’ll Need for Your New Accountant

Switching over accountants can be a messy transition. However, it does not have to be that way. By knowing the documents you need to be responsible for, it will make you better prepared. Generally, the investor that is most prepared will get their tax filing done in a timely fash...

By Aaron Zimmerman

Top 4 Mistakes in Rental Property Bookkeeping

After a long tax season, I'm finally ready to get back into writing articles. This year taught me a lot with seeing what various clients do for their bookkeeping (or lack thereof). In this article, I’ll be discussing the most common mistakes I saw during this year and w...

By Aaron Zimmerman

Five ways to help you keep accurate records

Keeping records does not have to be a nightmare. You can use simple and practical solutions to ensure that you are keeping good records. This article will explain why you should be recording your transactions so that you can follow the five best practices for making sure your rec...

By Aaron Zimmerman

Prepare Rental Property Financials For Taxes Like A Pro

In the last article I wrote about bookkeeping, I encouraged you to keep good records throughout the year so you could properly file your taxes. Now that the time has come to prepare your return, below are some steps you can take to organize your records. This article will detail...

By Aaron Zimmerman

6 Things You Need To Know About Paying Taxes While House Hacking

We have talked about house hacking on the podcast multiple times, from both a financial and emotional perspective, and why it may make sense for people to rent out their primary residence in order to generate additional income (and make sure to check out the Househacking Calculat...

By Aaron Zimmerman

Seven Ways to Allocate the Purchase Price of Your Rental Property

In past articles, I’ve shown you how to calculate your basis in your property. I’ve also shown you how to allocate the purchase price of your property between building and land. In this article, I’ll go through seven ways to do so. As a reminder, the reason why ...

By Aaron Zimmerman

What You Need To Know About Being A Real Estate Professional

Being a real estate professional has one main tax advantage: the ability to deduct losses against your active income up to $250,000 if you are single and $500,000 if you are married. With this exalted status comes some rules and restrictions that the investor must carefully consi...

By Aaron Zimmerman

UBIT and UDFI - What You Need to Know For Investing in Your IRAs

In this article, I look to cover the basic elements of Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT) and Unrelated Debt Financing Tax (UDFI) as they pertain to real estate investors. Usually, when we are talking about these taxes for real estate investors, it’s typically within the ...

By Aaron Zimmerman

Paying Your Family In Your Business

The IRS encourages you to hire your family members in your business. What this can do is shift income from a higher tax bracket to a lower tax bracket. This strategy can be powerful depending on your level of income from your real estate related businesses. In this article, we wi...

By Aaron Zimmerman

Qualified Business Income Deduction: A Free 20% Deduction (With Some Catches)

In the tax world, I’ve already noted that there’s been quite a few changes in recent years. One change that I haven’t talked about until now is the qualified business income deduction (QBID). This came out as part of the latest tax cuts effective for tax years s...