How Bay Area returns ! An example from reddit. Edited/removed some contents

Just sharing what I had seen in reddit. I have asked him to visit this forums too. On any case, this shows how well Bay Area real estate is growing.

Manch may be interested as he achieved manch’s desired 10k/month cash flow. Last paragraph shows where his rentals are.

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Antioch and Pittsburg are also my area. Yes those cities are very cash flow rich. Cash flow galore! :heart_eyes:

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Cool. I don’t get why he said he can only write off depreciation because his wife is a realtor? Aren’t we all writing off depreciation?

A drop a drop… a thousand mile journey start with a step… sound sophisticated but you probably dies before the ocean is formed and before you complete your journey. He is working because of the $300k salary, stop bulling me.

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No need to be jealous of him. I’d rather have your Apple stocks than his 300k salary and 6 Antioch houses :grinning:

Hmmmm, you want him pay tax now!

Since Texas does not have personal income taxes, he would prefer Austin than Antioch !!

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Manch, he probably means being able to realize the write off. If she wasn’t realtor he probably would have passive loss carryover due to income limits.

You mean writing the depreciation off against her realtor income?

I think realtors have special tax benefits. I think TurboTax allows you to take a bigger deduction on rentals if you declared yourself as a real estate professional.

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Yes. You can write off full amount against combined income.

A taxpayer will be considered a real estate professional if (1) more than one-half of the total personal services the taxpayer performs in trades or businesses are performed in real property trades or businesses in which the taxpayer materially participates and (2) the taxpayer performs more than 750 hours of services during the tax year in real property trades or businesses in which the taxpayer materially participates.

@manch you are not a real estate professional as your main trade is to be a good leader in this forum :sweat_smile:. Having said that, it doesn’t mean your wife couldn’t be one :wink:.

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My wife has a realtor license even though she still holds a full-time job. A few years back we were audited by IRS because IRS challenged her real estate professional status because she was just part-time. In the end we had to revise the tax return for that year to carry over the passive loss instead of offsetting W-2 income then also revise the tax return for the following year to account for the carried-over passive loss. Due to some phase-out restrictions we ended up paying more tax. The amount wasn’t much but it was a lot of headaches when it happened having to deal with IRS agents and all.

What’s funny was we met the same IRS agent a year later at a company event by my employer. Turns out that her husband works for the same company as I do. We smiled at each other and moved on. :grinning:

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This is very common tax audit.

I have even asked my CPA whether I can take realtor license to get a tax break, he suggested me that will not help me unless I have strong proof to show that I am working 750 hours of real estate work. Since I am working full time W2, it is hard to comply 750 hours of RE work.

Wow :open_mouth:. I am really interested what “proof” IRS need for the audit. While many of us have full time job, many of our wives are stay home mom. How hard is a stay home mom to “fake” the proof to be a real estate professional in addition to getting an Agent License?

I looked into this. It’s one of the most heavily audited situations by the IRS. You need to keep daily records of all activities etc. They are use to people trying this loophole. The reward is not worth the risk.

Impressive accomplishment for the guy. And more interesting that how did he/she come up with selling all their properties in 2007.

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I am more interested in how come he has not decided to sell yet. He made a fast decision from 2004 (buy) to 2007 (sell) to 2009 (buy). Why he has not sold yet? Is not consistent with previous 3 decisions.

Because unlike what you are trying to infer, he knows we are not at the top.

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Wuqijun - do you have a crystal ball? You seem to be doing exactly “predicting”, by saying we are not at the top every occasion. It’s not different from saying “we are at the top” at every occasion.

If everyone on this forum likes to predict, why can’t I do the same? I am as free as anyone else to predict things however I want.