Good evening,
If I could add to Jeremy`s list - and I do agree 100% with Jeremy`s points and assessment of his accountant, but will slightly paraphrase:
- community oriented - willing to give
- invests in real estate so that they have a practical knowledge you can relate to plus, without question, a desire to ensure that they are on top of the real estate tax/accounting rules
- practical experience from their clients including a healthy mix of real estate investors in their client portfolio
- an ability to relate to YOU - if you`re going to be working with this person over a long period of time in planning your financial future, you should really get to like the person. While you don`t need to be best friends, this trustworthy person should be someone you can get along with. If you don`t really like the accountant, you may not be sharing all of the relevant information regarding your future goals that they can help you achieve, provided that they know where you`d like to head.
- a team available to help answer questions. It can be difficult to work with a one person show when the individual is on vacation, sick, family issues etc. I think that it is fair that there may be one or two people who are the main drivers at the office, but its also nice to know there are some support people.
- reasonable period of time in getting back to your questions and getting your work back to you (be cautious if the time is consistently very fast or very slow - could be signs that they have few things to do or alternatively too much)
- willing to have a free initial consultation with you (a pet peeve of mine but I appreciate there are those that disagree with this)
- during the initial consultation, they show a genuine interest in YOU
For what its worth, in my opinon the accountant should be evaluating you as well. Although there are very few people we turn away, there needs to be a proper fit.
- Effectively, we will have to occasionally steer away potential clients where we believe that there are/could be illegal acts (the overwhelming majority of accountants want to preserve the integrity of their practices, clients and themselves). There`s a difference between agressive and illegal.
- We want to ensure that there is a personal rapport. We also want to work with people over the years that we enjoy spending time with - life is too short to be miserable.
- Whether we believe that the person will listen to advice. We certainly don`t expect them to agree to everything we say, but do expect them to be open to concepts and interested in their own futures sufficiently to consider our thoughts, amongst other advisors.
Warm regards...
George
