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Posts Tagged ‘LLC’

Good and Bad Super-Luxury Condo Buyers Love the LLC

February 9, 2015 | 9:46 am | | Favorites |

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One of the great ironies of modern residential real estate has been the expansion in transparency of information, along with greater secrecy of ownership. I think the latter coincides with the much greater wealth that is being put into hard assets like real estate. Privacy and security are indeed very important to many, including the wealthy and especially those near the top of the financial pyramid. There is nothing sinister or unseemly about the desire for privacy. The use of limited liability corporations (LLCs) has been a legal vehicle (and a gift) from lawmakers who created it that allows people to keep certain transactions hidden from view. However the LLC also provides an opportunity for bad actors to shelter their often ill-gotten assets too.

Louise Story and Stephanie Saul of The New York Times have explored this in “Towers of Secrecy: Stream of Foreign Wealth Flows to Elite New York Real Estate,” an epic data visualization along the lines of “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek” This article is a must read covering the hypersensitive subject of high end real estate and privacy.

The ongoing debate about the dying middle class versus the booming fortunes of the wealthy, the lack of affordable housing versus the super-luxury residential tower boom and municipal governments grappling to keep construction and development moving forward to keep tax revenue flows coming in, have made this effort long overdue.

Towers of Secrecy” is careful not to stereotype users of LLCs in high end real estate transactions as exclusively foreign buyers. Within the Manhattan market, foreign buyers are not the majority of overall high-end real estate purchasers. However they tend to be concentrated around the Midtown central business district (aka ‘Billionaires’ Row’) whereas domestic purchasers tend to favor markets found to the north and south of Midtown.

UPDATE There’s a great recap over on Curbed NY too:
Scandal-Plagued Foreigners Park Millions in Midtown Condos

Here are a few screenshots of the embedded videos within the “Towers of Secrecy” piece.

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Flipping In Secret

August 29, 2005 | 9:36 pm |

A survey of recent condo sales in Miami showed that nearly half the condo owners were LLC’s. It is believed that these are mainly speculators. Corporations and foreigners often create an LLC when purchasing real estate to protect themselves from liability. Speculative flipping appears to be on the rise [in metropolitan areas around the country.](http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=10358)

If you have been appraising for a while, remember the painful experience the FDIC’s bailouts starting with [Vernon Savings and Loan in Vernon, Texas in the late 1980’s? ](http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3682/is_199701/ai_n8745710) This was often claimed as the straw that broke the camel’s (FDIC’s) back and a flood of bailouts soon followed. One of the reasons for the collapse was the high volume of property flipping, with the same property often transferring several times in the same day. While the stories are different today, flipping is still occuring.

Buyers and sellers are increasingly withholding information that as appraisers, we are bound to verify. [According to USPAP, we are supposed to report all prior transfers within the past three years.](http://commerce.appraisalfoundation.org/html/USPAP2005/toc.htm) Our licensing requires us to disclose what we were unable to verify that is needed for the valuation.

It is now even more important than ever to get a copy of the contract and review it. We are stumbling into undisclosed flips more than in prior years. [Flipping appears to be one of the reasons Fannie Mae recently redesigned their appraisal forms.](http://soapbox.millersamuel.com/?p=41)

How do we determine if there is a flip? Usually, an experienced appraiser will notice that the sales price, even considering an optimistic appreciation assumption, doesn’t make sense and match the names in the contract with the owner on record. For the appraisal firms that do high volume with trainees, I hope you have good E & O insurance. 😉

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