This weekend, I’m packing up my worldly possessions and departing for the long trek to Salt Lake City. I’ve mentioned this in passing on webinars and emails recently, along with the fact that I’ve been studying for both the real estate agent exam and the Series 65 exam. This has caused a fair amount of confusion amongst viewers and readers.
To catch you up to speed, after leaving my day-to-day role at my software startup, Prolaera, last summer, I decided that I would reboot my tax resolution practice and build another boutique firm. I spent an entire month doing nothing but evaluating various business models, service options, and other important considerations for starting a new business. What I ultimately decided on was to integrate my personal real estate investing strategy into a tax practice, and build a hybrid tax/real estate brokerage/financial advisory practice all centered around a specific strategy for acquiring rental properties.
The tax resolution aspect focuses on doing only lien withdrawals, subordination, and discharge work to help facilitate real estate transactions (the lien work only model).
Moving to another geographical areas wasn’t originally part of the concept. However, as I started the search for my next rental property purchase, the local market conditions, driven by spillover from Seattle’s blazing hot real estate market, started to look less and less desirable to me. I’m not a fan of rapidly increasing prices, low inventory, and multi-offer situations. That’s just not a game I like to play when it comes to real estate. So I started contemplating a relocation.
As you may have seen last week in the market area selection video I unlocked for a few days, I think it’s very important to be strategic about the decisions you make in your tax firm. Since I happen to have the flexibility to change my geographic location without disrupting anything else in my life, I made the choice to do so. After researching several other markets, including Vancouver, WA, Klamath Falls, OR, Boise, ID, and Bozeman, MT, I ultimately decided that the Salt Lake City area was the best fit for me for the next few years.
Why Salt Lake? I have a long laundry list of reasons. Here is a short sampling of the bigger reasons:
- A balanced real estate market with plenty of inventory in “blue collar” neighborhoods with homes priced well under $300,000 – my preferred type of rental property.
- An