Wealth-Building for Real Estate Agents: What I Wish I Knew

By Josh Stern

Joshua Stern’s real estate career exemplifies strategic growth and leadership. Beginning in 2002, he leveraged the principles of The Millionaire Real Estate Agent (MREA) to build Utah’s #1 real estate team and rank among the top 100 teams worldwide.

As a successful real estate agent, you know your business. You track every expense, every commission, and every dollar on your P&L. I was the same way. I built a large, thriving business by paying close attention to the numbers.

But when I started thinking seriously about early retirement, I ran into an uncomfortable truth. My personal finances were a mess.

For years, I trusted expensive CPAs and financial advisors without fully understanding what they were doing. Eventually, I realized my wealth structure was inefficient and quietly cost me tens of thousands. When I finally took control, I was shocked by how much I did not know and by how little guidance most successful agents ever receive about their own money.

The issue is not income. It is knowledge, structure, and automation. Small inefficiencies and overlooked details create marginal losses that compound over time. Those losses do not just cost money. They cost years of growth and push retirement further away.

That realization led me to create this exclusive training, Wealth Building: All the Things I Wish I Had Known 15 Years Ago, on January 14. It is a practical, real-world framework designed to help you build, protect, and automate your wealth without creating another job for yourself.

In this class, we focus on strategies you can implement right away, including:

1. The S-corporation advantage. If you are still operating as a sole proprietor or an LLC taxed as one, you are likely paying 15.3% self-employment tax on all of your net income. With an S-corporation election, you can pay yourself a reasonable salary and take the remaining income as distributions. This change alone can significantly reduce your tax burden.

For many six-figure earners, that means keeping thousands of dollars each year instead of sending it to the IRS.

2. Maxing your pre-tax power. We break down how to use accounts like the Solo 401(k), SEP-IRA, and Health Savings Account correctly. When structured properly, these tools lower your taxable income today while allowing your money to compound tax-deferred or tax-free over time.

3. The magic of compounding. The money you save on taxes gets put to work immediately. This is where concepts like the Rule of 72 and marginal gains matter. By reducing unnecessary fees and taxes, you increase your effective return.

Even moving from a 7 percent return to 9 percent can shorten your financial independence timeline by years. At that rate, your money doubles roughly every eight years. Wealth is not built by timing the market. It is built by staying in the market with the right structure.

This class is the result of my own journey toward retirement and the realization that many successful agents do not truly know their numbers. I created it to help others avoid the time, stress, and money I lost learning this the hard way.

Do not build wealth that creates another job. Build wealth that gives you options and freedom.

Join me for this sought-after class. You will learn how to automate your financial life using the 30/30/20/20 bucket system and how to calculate your Freedom Number using the Multiply-by-25 Rule.

Wealth Building: All The Things I Wished I Knew 15 Years Ago

When: Wednesday, January 14
Time: 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. MST
Where:

KW Utah Realtors Keller Williams

1265 Fort Union Boulevard

Cottonwood Heights, UT 84121

Click the link to register now.

Stop being subpar on your own finances, and start treating your personal finances with the same discipline you apply to your business, and begin building the wealth and freedom you deserve.

And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me at headcoach@kwutahcoach.com or (801) 252-5226. I look forward to seeing you there.