Pay for College With a Real Estate Investment Trust

Whether you have kids now or plan to in the future, paying for college is something you've no doubt thought about.

Real estate investors should be aware of the options they have when it comes to using their property to help pay for college tuition. In this article, we’ll discuss one method of paying for college tuition that doesn’t get much attention. This method involves utilizing a land trust to hold title to investment properties.

Set Up a Land Trust For Each Child

Once you’ve identified the investment property you’d like to use to fund future college expenses, make sure that the title to each of those properties is held in separate land trust. This is especially important if you have multiple kids because each child will serve as the beneficiary of his or her own separate land trust. Also, we’ve seen several cases where separating assets into their own individual entities, such as multiple “child LLCs” within a series LLC, has helped investors manage the impact of lawsuits.

Have Each Property Appraised

After ensuring that each child has their own land trust and is named beneficiary to that trust, have each property appraised at its current market value. Afterwards, sell an option on each investment property. Each child’s land trust will hold these options and accumulate the appreciation value of their respective properties.

Cash in on Your Real Estate Investment Trust for College

Whenever your kids are ready to head to college, you’ll be presented with two options. First, the kids can exercise their contractual right to sell the property in their land trust, using the money earned for tuition. Alternatively, you can buy the options back and use the profits for college expenses. Either way, parents can put their properties to work in accumulating funds for college rather than taking funds from their current income.

Manage Multiple Land Trusts With a Series LLC

As you can see, a land trust is not only useful in providing privacy when it comes to your wealth and assets, it can also be used to pay for your child’s college expenses. However, key to this method is putting each property in its own trust. This insulates each property from each other, so that a negative hit on one doesn’t impact the others. We specialize in managing multiple land trusts and LLCs within an entity called a series LLC. The land trust combined with a series LLC provides maximum asset protection. However, you’ll want to work with an experienced team of legal professionals to devise an overall asset protection strategy.