How Broadcasters can buy a home without doxing themselves.

Your streaming career has taken off; you’re doing great! In fact, you’re doing a lot of the adulting kinds of things you know you should do. You’re saving and investing money, you’re properly insured, and your business is a well-oiled machine. Now it’s time to buy a home! Just one problem- you don’t want a fan just showing up at your door because your name’s on the publicly available mortgage info! It’s happened before and it could happen to you. Let’s look at how you could avoid it.

Please note, I am not an attorney. This is the kind of thing that you should take to a lawyer to make sure all of the steps happen in the right order and with the right protections. I am probably going to say that you should talk to an attorney 5 times in this article. Let me know if you need a referral.

Trust vs LLC

There are two main ways to obscure your identity when buying a home.

Trust

The first method is a Title Holding Trust. Check out the American Bar Association’s glossary for the definitions of some of the terms I’ll use. A Title Holding Trust is a revocable trust where the home buyer (you!) is the owner and beneficiary. A trusted third party serves as the trustee. The trustee’s role is to follow the rules in the trust and take care of the logistical steps of signing paperwork. The home title and deed (if you’re using a mortgage) are transferred in to the trust. You retain control but you aren’t the one signing the paperwork. You may want to pay a trustee to manage it professionally. The disadvantage is upfront cost and difficulty with lenders while the benefits are lower long-term cost and your privacy is preserved.

LLC

The second method is a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC). We’ve talked about why you might start an LLC for your business in the past. An LLC can let you obscure ownership and it can separate your personal liability from the home. There are two main disadvantages. The first is that you have to pay an annual fee to your state for an LLC. The second is if the LLC owns the property you may not qualify for the awesome primary residence capital gains tax exclusion (section 121).

If you own a home, live in it, and follow certain rules you’re able to exclude $250k (single) or $500k (married) of growth on the property from being taxed. That can be a huge benefit, especially in somewhere with a hot real estate market. If the LLC is disregarded for tax purposes you can keep the section 121 capital gains exclusion. ResidentSleeper. You need to look up your state’s homestead requirements to make sure you qualify for the exemption.

Holding property in an LLC can cause problems for qualifying for homestead. The  LLC can possibly complicate property taxes, particularly if primary residences / homesteads get reduced property taxes. While LLC’s provide good asset protection when they are used to operate a business, they are not going to provide any asset protection when used to own your primary residence (and, if the LLC owns other assets, you’re definitely comingling and there will be no asset protection for anything). So, the home needs to be in its own separate LLC, if it’s going to be in one, with no other assets in it. Generally, having your primary residence in an LLC is a bad idea. The anonymous trust is much cleaner.

Again, TALK WITH A LAWYER.

Buying a home without a mortgage

This is the easiest situation. This could arise from buying a home in cash or from having a private lender. In this case, all you need to do is set up the trust or LLC ahead of time and use that entity to buy the home. While you still need to follow the setup steps there are fewer parties involved to complicate the process.

Buying a home with a mortgage

It’s harder to do this if you need a mortgage. This is because a lot of lenders are leery of not having the actual owner’s name on their documents. While you might be able to get the property’s deed in the trust or LLC’s name the lender might still require your name on the mortgage. The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and Veteran’s Affairs (VA) programs won’t allow you to buy without your name on the mortgage. You want to look for a portfolio lender, or a lender that holds on to the mortgages they originate. A lot of lenders sell of their mortgages so your best bet might be a local credit union. You may also want to look in to confidentiality agreements with real estate agents and the lender’s team. This is probably only applicable if you’re hugely popular but it’s still something to consider.

One downside of LLC’s here is that lenders often consider homes purchased in LLC’s as commercial properties. That means they assume you’re buying for investment purposes. Generally, you’ll get worse mortgage rates and terms if you’re getting a commercial loan.

Obscuring an already owned home

If you already own a home then you can protect yourself going forward but can’t change older records. This means that you might be able to use the trust or LLC solution and transfer your property to it. That will fix the situation going forward. However, your old tax and purchase records will be publicly available. If someone is truly dedicated to finding your location then they’ll be able to use those records.

Why should streamers care?

You should care because you don’t want a fan or stalker showing up at your door. You are a public, or semi-public, figure.

Conclusion

This article is unfortunately technical. The main thing you should take away from it is that it is possible to buy a home without tying your name to the address. Unfortunately, it involves some up-front planning and expense. You absolutely should work with an expert to make sure that you’re doing things correctly. One slip up could invalidate your efforts.

With any of these options you need to first find a lawyer and then start the rest of the process.

You don’t have to figure this out alone. This is what we do- help streamers make great money decisions. If that’s something that sounds interesting to you reach out me or schedule some time for a free consult. You can check out what I do here. I’m not a lawyer but my job is to find these kinds of opportunities and connect you with the people who can do the calculation work.