I was looking at some properties today and when I searched the accessors office database I see that the owners put it in a trust at a sale of $0. What do you think this means? Its a small duplex, the owners bought the unit 8 years ago and put it in a trust last year. Its up for sale and was wondering what you thought. Are there allot of benefits to having a trust? Do you think this may make them open to owner financing? Thanks.
Most of my properties are in trusts. It may be owned by a group of people, or it may be owned by one person that wants some protection. The owners of the trust have the same pressures as anyone else. If it is making good money they are not likely to want to sell owner finance or not. Think of the trust as a person and look at the property to see what the property is doing to that person. Is it costing him money? Is it making him money? If it is losing money he may want to sell.
In my neck of the woods, we use trusts for estate planning and to avoid probate especially if the property is out of state. There is nothing sinister implied about a property in a trust. I don’t believe you can make any conclusions about the owner’s motivation or financing flexibility just because the property is held in a trust.
When the owner of the property is transferring title into his own revocable trust, title may be transferred with a “no consideration” deed. That is probably why you see $0 as the sale price. $5 is pretty common in my area.
That all makes sense. Probably owned it for a few years and just decided to put it in a trust. I think one of the main reasons people may do that is in case of death. Property is abit run down but rented out. Need to get allot more info on it before bringing it to you guys lol. The funny thing is the main reason I noticed it was beause I was looking at a sf next door, bank owned and vacant. Needs work but could be a nice buy. The duplex is next door and needs some curb appeal. Cleaned up both would make nice looking properties in a pretty ok area. Not the slums but not the suburbs either.