George called us after being referred by his close friend. He was turning sixty-five years old and had worked in the real estate market his whole life. He was comfortable in that arena and his rental homes had treated him right over the years.

George’s challenge was that his current rental homes were taking an enormous amount of his time. He used to enjoy painting and cleaning the different properties, but what used to be a pleasant escape had become a burden. It was no longer so easy to climb underneath the sink to fix a faucet, and the seemingly never-ending painting took away from his time on the golf course.

His goal was to simplify. He had enough assets to be financially comfortable for years if he could find away to create the cash flows that he needed without the work that went with the real estate he currently owned.

After reviewing some options to reduce the taxes he would incur when he sold his various properties, we put a program in place that would create liquidity over the next three years. We worked with 1031 opportunities to defer taxes, diversify part of his real estate portfolio, and create additional cash flows. We were also able to utilize proceeds from select sales of real estate and reinvest in a well diversified cash flow generating portfolio.

The low tax rates George had enjoyed due to the depreciation of the real estate were maintained by the appropriate use of both tax-free and taxable bonds in his account. A monthly check was deposited directly into his checking account, and the work that had become such a burden with the individual real estate properties was no more.