The CPA couple started buying assets after helping real estate investors save high taxes. Their customers gave them a “fraud code” to invest successfully.
Amanda Han and Matthew MacFarland are regular CPA and non -full -time real estate investors.Amanda Han and Matthew MacFarland
Amanda Han and Matthew MacFarland used real estate tax benefits and income.
They started investing in 2008. And focused on searching for suggestions that would make positive cash flows.
Their portfolio includes rent and syndications, balance of active and passive investments.
Amanda Han and Matthew MacFarland stumbled into real estate at the beginning of their career. They both worked for a Big Four accounting company and were placed in a real estate group.
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“It was like accidentally. They helped you where you helped,” Han told Business Insider.
She has never been interested in investing in real estate. She grew up watching her parents and grandparents spend hours in her real estate portfolio.
“They were very practical,” Han said. She did not think that this type of active investment was for her, but as she and MacFarland spent more and more time working with real estate investors in their daily work, the couple could not ignore tax breaks.
AHA Moment came to the work of its tax manager a few years later.
“I reviewed someone’s tax return, probably a 60 -year -old gentleman. He was a pensioner and all he was going on was real estate,” MacFarland recalled. “Looking at his tax return, this guy earned money in real estate – cash flow – and did not pay for it due to depreciation. And I was: ‘Hey, here’s something. “
It took a little longer to go to Han to get around, but when her dad became ill, she emphasized the importance of having a spare income flow.
“You have to have another source of income, because otherwise, no matter what your job is well paid if you have to stop working, you no longer have money,” she said. “So then I started to agree with Matt to examine the real estate.”
Han and MacFarland started Keystone CPA in 2008.Courtesy of Amanda Han and Matthew Macfarland
Han and Macfarland bought their first investment assets at about the same time as Started its company Keystone CPA.
Despite the fact that for many years he worked as an adjoining real estate work, “We started wearing an investor hat, so I think we had a lot of the same uncertainties and concerns that most new investors have,” Han said.
The couple in California chose to start in a more accessible market and settled in Las Vegas, where Han grew up and still had a family. From there, they began to look at the features online. Their priority was found what would cause a positive cash flow.
They buy in 2008. In the housing disaster, “so we really doubted that we were doing the right thing,” Han said. However, carrying out numbers through cash flow spreadsheet they developed Excel, and, given the withdrawal strategies, alleviated their anxiety. “We just led the numbers and said, ‘Okay, these figures make sense. Let’s do it, “as scary as it seemed at the time.”
She added that it was also useful to consider the worst case scenario:
“How, what will happen if the property is free for six months? And just knowing that in the most conservative case we had to hold us down, it is one of the things that gave me consolation.”
As their calculator predicted, their first rental home-one family home, which they set as long-term rental-started to benefit immediately.
“It wasn’t something we refused to work, but it has proven that we can do it, we can get a small cash flow,” Han said. “Until we lost the money, we were happy about it.”
From their first purchase, they have expanded their portfolio and modeled their strategy based on what works for their customers. They call it their “fraud code”, and it helped them determine which markets to invest and what investment to seek.
Han and MacFarland choose passive investments in passive real estate investments as they raise their children.Amanda Han and Matthew MacFarland
Adding real estate syndicling transactions to their portfolio was a specific strategy shift inspired by their clients.
With Real Estate Syndications, a group of investors combines their capital to acquire one property owned by the syndicator. When the investor contributes to capital, their role in the transaction becomes completely passive. Real Estate Syndicator is responsible for finding a deal, operation of surgery and eventually refunding to investors.
“Over the years, we have realized that we are really good at tax strategists – this is our specialty – and we know that there are people who invest real estate that are much better than we are,” MacFarland said. “So it makes sense to use their experience.”
From 2025 They actively manage three single -family rental services and have some apartments, apartments and mobile home parks among their 16 passive syndicating transactions. They are also the authors of “Books on Advanced Tax Strategies” and share tax tips and information through their YouTube channel.
With experience in both active and passive real estate investments, “I don’t think there is one that is necessarily better than the other,” Han said. “It just depends on your resources: do you have more time or have you have more money?”
It also depends on your strengths and weaknesses.
“We have customers who make their own rent and they are doing very well. They create a much greater return than any syndication could give,” she said. However, if your background is not real estate and you have more money than the time to spend on your investment, syndications may make more meaningful.
Although the couple started buying assets to create an additional flow of income in the form of rental revenue – and they are still focusing on cash flows in analysis of transactions, they said the assessment had the greatest impact on their net value.
Their lateral uproar also encouraged them to appreciate their daily work.
“We started a trip thinking that we would work full -time real estate and stop working as a CPA,” Han said. “But we quickly realized that we really love our career as CPA. So it changes more from retirement early to only extra income.”
