If you're an independent contractor, you may get the impression that the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDL) don't apply to you. However, you may qualify for those programs, even if you don't have employees. Yes, but borrowers cannot apply for an EIDL and PPP loan for the same purposes. If you want, you can get a PPP loan to cover lost income and other costs that are forgivable under the PPP, and then get an EIDL loan to cover some of your other expenses.
You should carefully review the options available to select the SBA loans that best fit your needs and circumstances. The SBA determined that a broker will not be able to use the proceeds from the PPP loan to compensate independent contractors. However, independent contractor agents are eligible to apply for PPP loans on their own. A real estate agent who received the money told NBC News that she came to believe that taking out a loan with taxpayer money to be forgiven after a successful year might be inappropriate.
Since most real estate agents are independent contractors, they are likely to qualify for initial PPP loans. In the United States, the average gross commission on real estate sales is 2.5 percent of the sale price, and the agent usually receives 85 percent of that amount, according to Real Trends Consulting, a company that tracks sales and house commissions. The SBA refers to this as a “replacement for the owner's income,” and means that an agent who has difficulty earning commissions from real estate sales due to the COVID-19 pandemic can use the income from the PPP loan as a substitute for the compensation that the agent would normally receive for commissions. So, yes, if you're an independent contractor or business owner in the real estate industry, you can apply for the PPP.
As real estate sales and commissions increased during the pandemic, individual agents also received help from taxpayers. The rise in home prices was attributed to cumulative demand and low mortgage rates, creating an opportunity for real estate agents to excel in the markets. For real estate entities, the percentage of forgiveness is almost the same, with 83 percent of all loans and 84 percent of amount in dollars, according to the PRAC website. He said that, based on his conversations with other real estate agents, that was “more or less what everyone got.
The three Small Business Administration (SBA) companies Capital Plus Financial, Blue Acorn, which offers a system for submitting applications, and MooveGuru, which provides a concierge team to help agents along the way, have created a simplified 15-minute application process for the industry real estate. Since real estate agents are a personal services company (making the “cost of goods sold” not applicable to most agents), agents should normally be able to use “gross income” to determine their “gross income” for a quarter. Steve Murray, partner at consulting firm Real Trends, said that when the pandemic affected real estate brokers, they panicked due to the cancellation of open days.
