Eagle Mountain Real Estate And Property Sales

[print-me/] When I was doing some research, specifically looking into a Park in a Patterson Subdivision, I found something I thought was interesting. The name Craig C Mortensen keeps coming up in most of my searches. Craig is the Registered Agent for over 125 different Utah Business Entities including Patterson Homes, LLC, Patterson Faimly Enterprises, LLC, Patterson Ventures, LLC, Patterson Development, LLC, Patterson Real Estate Group, LLC, and the famous Patterson Empire, Inc. I have a complete list available for download here. To do an executive search you need to pay on the website, so I am going to share all of the documents I have found or paid for when writing this article. I found some interesting patterns with homes that are sold by Patterson Homes. I am going to list a few examples at this time. I am not drawing any conclusions on what is going on here, I will leave to you as the reader. But I would love to hear your comments, please leave your opinions and comments below. I have reached out to Mr. Mortensen for comment on why these properties have switched ownership between LLCs that he is the registered agent for. There are a few reasons why real estate is owned by an LLC instead of an individual. I asked another Eagle Mountain realtor what he thought about why the properties were changing hands through so many LLCs controlled by the same person. “Maybe he is using limited partnerships for each of his developments. Another advantage (as I’m sure you’re aware) is the tax advantages of the use of a corporation, LLC, or limited partnership. He may be doing this to cover his assets for legal reasons.” There are a lot of other reasons that I have come up with that could possibly be why this is happening. One reason as mentioned above is for tax purposes. Maybe moving the properties between LLCs in some way gives tax advantages. But if the LLCs are setup up as pass-thru LLCs then there would be no tax benefit. “An LLC pass through refers to the pass-through characteristic of this type of business entity when it comes to taxation. The profits and losses of a Limited Liability Company (LLC) pass through the company and on to the members (owners) of the business.” [SOURCE] Another reason could be to maybe influence the future selling prices of properties around the traded property. As stated by Whiting, in the article “Eagle Mountain Housing Prices“, property sale and purchase prices are influenced by comps or the price that similar properties in the area were sold for. To be fair, the majority of the sales listed between LLCs are not put on MLS, the system that realtors use to generate comps. So the examples that I have listed have little influence on the actual purchase price of similar properties in the area. But the potential for that influence is there. It also should be noted that if a realtor does sell a property to a friend or family member it is tagged differently in MLS so that other realtors know that it was a sale that should not influence other home prices. A lot of realtors that keep investment properties for rentals will have those properties protected under an LLC, so it is not unusual to see a developer or realtor associated with multiple LLCs. Colin Curtis, Eagle Mountain resident, real estate agent, real estate investor & property manager has this to say about LLCs and having the LLC as the owner of the property.

As a real estate agent and investor for over 16 yrs now I have learned a lot from research, mentors, from courses & classes and from my own experiences including that when buying and holding properties as rentals it is wise to keep them separate from you personally by vesting them in an LLC (or a trust) at or after closing. Some of the benefits of not holding them in your personal name but rather in an LLC include keeping your personal finances and your business finances separate which helps for accounting purposes and also in getting mortgage loans to buy more investment properties. Also, you limit your liability to your company or companies when you hold your properties in LLCs. It is easier to keep your assets confidential by having them vested in LLCs than in your personal name. Real estate vesting is a public record. Anyone can look that up online for a particular address or a particular owner. There is only one you so if you vest your properties in your name anyone can search your name and all the properties you own will pull up. But you can set up LLCs and dba’s (doing business as) on your LLCs under any name you want that is not already taken and is approved by the state (for a small fee and in a few minutes on corporations.utah.gov). For every property, we buy we set up a dba under one of our LLCs (two-member LLC with my wife & I as owners) and name it after the property address. By doing this the properties won’t pull up in searches under my name, they won’t pull up under the main LLCs name, and when a specific address is searched the owner shows as “the property address LLC”. This creates greater confidentiality so the public doesn’t know everything I own. This could come in helpful in many ways. Also by definition, an LLC or limited liability company is intended to limit the liability of the company assets and operations and keep that separate from personal. So in the event of a lawsuit having properties not tied to you personally or to each other can significantly reduce and compartmentalize one’s liability. Vesting properties this way is perfectly legal and a good title company can help you do it for minimal cost. Choosing to hold properties in LLCs to limit your liability is not shady or unethical, it doesn’t mean you are running your business in a questionable way or doing anything illegal and trying to hide it, no it has nothing to do with any of that rather in the current litigious world we live in its really just about protecting your hard-earned assets. Happy investing!

Supporting Documents

Craig Mortensen LLC Search