Real Estate Agent Income & Expense Worksheet

Get your money right.  Every real estate agent needs to know how to properly work with income and expenses for their real estate business growth and more importantly monitor their personal overhead.  We will go into detail on both.  We will also provide a Real Estate Agent Income & Expense Worksheet at the end of this article.  

Let’s dig in. You do not need to make a lot of money as a real estate agent in order to be rich or financially free.  You just have to pay close attention to a Real Estate Agent Income & Expense Worksheet and monitor it weekly.  

Is Your Foundation Weak?

Below you will find ways to build and develop your financial foundation. Follow these steps and you will have a very lucrative and stress less career in real estate.

The main reason why real estate agents fail in this business is not the lack of commission checks coming in.  It is where are those real estate agent income and expenses are being allocated to.  Does that money go directly to pay a $487 monthly BMW car payment?  If so, get your money right.  Follow these steps.  Sacrifice.  And if you do, you will have the biggest baddest house(s) and cars(s) and boat (s) and whatever else you want in life.  FREE & CLEAR. 

Some Financial Facts

• Approx 77 million adult Americans have debt collections reported in their credit files.  *Urban Institute – Where do you think these people are headed?  Likely working the rest of their lives and / or bankruptcy.  
• Less than 50% have a reserve fund for any emergencies.  *FINRA.  I can only imagine if you or your kid has a medical emergency.  Even with insurance it still could cost you thousands.  
• 30% of people pay the minimum payments on credit cards each month.  *FIRNA.  This is a disaster waiting to happen.  This is interest on interest that will continue to accumulate until the inevitable happens.  
• Approx 50% with student debt have expressed concerns of their ability to repay the debt.  **Global Financial Literacy.  I have read a lot of articles and stats on this being the next bubble.  So these kids are racking up tens of thousands of dollars of debt which is more money than they have ever made in their entire lives.  And now they should have the financial know how to repay this?  Many of which are having difficulty getting a job in their field.  And now back living with their parents.  Very Sad.
• Only 30% have a long term financial plan.  

This doesn’t have to be you.  You can change this behavior fairly quickly so as long as you follow a Real Estate Agent Income & Expense Worksheet.  If you are starting out with low or no debt, great!  Keep it this way!  If you have some baggage, we have a plan for you here and in other articles on this site.  A quick video below addressing being house poor.  Avoid at all costs!  

Do You know who Mike Tyson is?  

Go ahead and Google the amount of sports stars, movie stars, lottery ticket winners and rock stars who have lost it all and went bankrupt.  These are people who have made tens / hundreds of millions of dollars.  And several years later, it is all gone.

Mike Tyson.  I am sure you have heard of him.  Famous boxer.  It is estimated he made over $300 million over his career.  Some fights paying him $30 Million in one fight!  Amazing.  In 2003 it all came crashing down when he filed for bankruptcy with a reported $23 million in debt.  Maybe if he used a Real Estate Agent Income & Expense Worksheet he wouldn’t be that bad in shape.  

So, how does this happen?  Simple answer.  A lack of financial education.  Think about it.  Were you really taught about money in your house, grade school or even college?  Most likely you were not. 

I graduated with a bachelors in Business Management with an Entrepreneur concentration from FGCU in 2003. Even inside those types of business classes, we didn’t learn much on the basics of financial education.   I assume it is even worse these days.

One thing I encourage you to purchase that will really change the scope of what you do with money and ultimately become financially FREE is to check out the CASH FLOW GAME on Amazon!  Playing this game on a repeat basis has literally gotten me from nothing to financial freedom fairly fast.

There was a time where I was living in the upstairs of my small office where we had our real estate company, Maxim Realtors.  I showered at the local gym as there was only a half bathroom and crashed on a futon for several months.  I felt I hit rock bottom and it was a bit depressing.  However, I learned I needed to sacrifice.  I sold off everything I owned including my waterfront condo and boat.  I literally had two suitcases full of clothes and my car.  Minimal living at its best.  

The cashflow game and Robert Kiyosaki’s Book kept my head in the game.  I knew I wanted to get back into a real property to live in as soon as I could.  But with keep overhead as low as possible.  I began my search and picked up a condo for $26,000.  I paid cash and my total overhead was less than $600 a month.  Less than 4 years later from that purchase the tides drastically changed for my financial picture.  And I consistently reverted to my Real Estate Agent Income & Expense Worksheet.

What is Financial Freedom?

Again, it isn’t how much money you make, it is all about what you do with it and how much you keep.  Financial Freedom is essentially the point in your life where you do not have to work any longer as your assets pay for your liabilities.  

For example.  It costs my household less than $2,000 a month (No Mortgage on my beach condo.  No auto payment. No credit card debt). My assets (mainly beach vacation rental properties that I own) more than cover my $2,000 a month.  I do not technically have to work.  Any overflow cash goes toward traveling and to purchase other cash flow assets.

Let’s not rule out commissions either.  I have been selling real estate since 2003 and have built up my Sphere Of Influence.  So I get warm referrals and make commission dollars from that.  I do not need these commissions to pay my overhead, so these funds go directly into buying more assets.

Make sense?  I do not want to come off bragging.  Rather just showing you where I was and where I am at today when you work on your financial education.   I honestly do not know where I would be today without doing my own research and working on my own situation.  I am grateful every day and this is why I am spending countless hours writing the content that I share on this site and my YouTube Channel.  

When you live financially astute, your Asset column grows and it can grow very fast when your overhead is low.  This is why I sold everything and lived as cheap as possible.  Buy the cashflow game mentioned above.  Play it with your friends and family.  Help all those around you.  It will change your thinking and your life.  

What Does it Cost you to Live?

Click here for your Real Estate Agent Income & Expense Worksheet for personal income and expenses.  You will want to print a few of these out and work through them with your spouse.  Put it somewhere you can review it daily.  Know these numbers and each day and figure ways to reduce it.  Keep reading below and I will show you how to reduce it.

Keep Your Personal Expenses Low

If you are entering into the real estate business full time and have $25,000 saved away so you can get started that is great.  What isn’t great is if it costs you and your family $8,000 a month to live.  So do the math.  This is about 3 months of funds to cover your overhead.  You better work your ass off in your first 90 days if this is your scenario.

But let’s say your personal overhead is $2,000 a month, this $25k will last you 12.5 months!  A huge difference and one less stressed out real estate agent on the streets.

Stress Kill.  So Keep Your Bills Low.

Just a quick note.  There is a direct correlation between stress and cancer, heart attacks / heart disease.  Not too mentioned divorces, suicide, abuse, etc.  Most stress is caused by money.  Money in many cases is forbidden to talk about because you may seem greedy or whatever the case.

Talk about money every day at the dinner table with your wife and kids.  Be transparent with your kids. Play the cashflow game with them.  Show them what dinner cost them that night.  Teach them not necessarily the concept of saving money but more so how to grow it.  Also, it is proven that teaching about money, in turn will get better with at managing it.  

Want To Teach Your Kid About Money?

Create a scenario where they have to make it!  Give your kid say 20 bucks to invest in something they can resell at school, playground, etc.  For example.  Buy them a box of Blow Pops from Amazon.  This box of 100 pops equates to a cost of approximately .14 cents each.  If they sell them for .30 cents, they more than double their money. Every kid in school wants a little sugar right?  Tell your kid that the rule is, they have to sell them all, not use any of them for themselves and they have to reinvest the money.  

To keep things interesting, you agree that you will match their profit each time.  So if they made $16 from that box, you match that $16. Initial investment of $14 plus the $16 profit plus your match $16 = $52.  They can take that $52 and invest it into more blow pops or something else that you all sit down and brainstorm on.  

This activity could be forever life changing for your child and you!

Sacrifice First

In my other article How To Retire in 7 Years as a Real Estate Agent you will read my personal story on being stupid with money.  There is a certain amount of sacrifice that you will have to accept.  However, it is very short term.  Trust me!  I’ve lived it.  Read all of these articles on this site for personal stories.  You can go from zero to financially free in a short period of time.  So what are you going to sacrifice or give up in order to build your future?

How to Lower Your Personal Expenses.  

In that same article above, read and reread the portion under the headline “The Fastest Way To Get Out Of Debt.” This will set you up on a game plan to pay off credit cards and car payments which is the first thing you need to get off the books.  And as mentioned, always keep an eye on your Real Estate Agent Income & Expense Worksheet.

Once that is completed, move to Phase II.  This is where we look at all other costs.  Can I get my insurances down? Can I rent a room in my house?  Can I downsize my house or my rent payment and get into something smaller and cheaper?

This is why the exercise of writing out on the spreadsheet above is so important.  The act of writing out is very powerful.  Most people don’t write down their goals let alone their expenses.  If you do this you will be at the top 10%.  A simple procedure that provides incredible results.  

Once this is written out, your thinking will change.  You will start to get creative and brainstorm how you can get this number down even further.  

Get Help If You Need To

If needed, ask someone who is fiscally responsible to review this Real Estate Agent Income & Expense Worksheet and get them to brainstorm with you. Maybe your significant other is good with money and you are bad.  Have them hold you accountable.  Work together.

My Foundation Is Ready!

This is where life truly becomes more enjoyable.  You are no longer stressing about money as your personal overhead is low.   You now have money left over to reinvest into your real estate business.  More calculated marketing dollars will go into your real estate business which should grow your ROI (Return On Investment).

Track Your Business Expenses With Your Real Estate Agent Income & Expense Worksheet

Now you need to track every dollar that goes into your real estate marketing.  If you are paying $200 a month for a lead program, track it.  Put this in a spreadsheet with income / expenses.  This is $2,400 over a 12 month period.  If you made $8,000 over the year directly from this campaign, then you keep it.  If you lost money then consider ditching it.  But how will you know unless you track it?

Be sure when someone call or emails you on these ads you record it in your file system every time.  Where did this client come from?  On December 15th, go through every closed file and figure where your revenue is coming from. Match that revenue with that campaign and adapt as needed.

The problem with most real estate agents they do not track this.  How can you build a legit real estate business if you are not tracking your numbers?  Remember get your money right and keep a keen eye on your numbers.   Keep it simple.

The Real Estate Agent Income & Expense Worksheet is a simple spreadsheet to use.  Feel free to create your own.  Handwrite it if necessary.  It doesn’t matter so as long as you are tracking it.  I also use Google Drive for my spreadsheets so they are accessible via the cloud on any device.

Keep Your Head Up

You can do this!  Shift your mind slightly and work on it every day.  You will likely have to make some tough decisions and sacrifice some.  However, it will be worth it.  And trust me, things can turn around very fast.  Just believe in the process.  I hope you implement these strategies and would love to hear comments on your successes and growth.  As always, if you found this or any article on this site helpful, please pass along to someone who could use it.  Thank you!