For 1031, shall I buy in LLC or personal names?

[David Smith]

If you have 3 investment properties in personal names, how can you later sell each and buy another in order to qualify for 1031?  They can mix up.

If you buy each in different LLC names, easier for 1031 tax purposes.

Buying in personal names, it is way easier for financing. One of my lenders does not work with LLC lending.

Maybe I shall choose a new lender. But surely, LLC costs more money to set up and maintain.

How do you do ?

[Jessica Zolotorofe]

So for a 1031 exchange, if the "exchanger" or "tax payer" is a single person, you can exchange any of the properties into an entity of which the exchanger is the sole member. So you can own your property as John Smith and then sell it as part of a 1031, and buy a new property in the name of JS, LLC and that works so that you can keep your properties separate in the future, if that's your goal.

You won't mix up the properties when you do a 1031, though, because everything is strictly documented by property and you can do 3 separate 1031 exchanges with the same exchanger, that shouldn't be a problem. If you engage a good 1031 company and attorney, they keep track of everything for you.