Ideal Number of Properties Per LLC

[Tejas Paruthooli]

My family owns and manages ~15 properties in Illinois. About a third of these properties are fully paid off, and we are looking to create an LLC or Series LLC for them. We do have an umbrella policy in place for all of our properties but want additional protection. Our lawyer provided us with the projected fees for both options and a Series LLC was extremely expensive.

What is the ideal number of properties / total asset value for an LLC? I feel like one LLC per property is overkill and would be quite difficult to manage. Would love to know your thoughts and any recommendations.

[Errol Graham]

In my view it more useful to focus on the total asset value rather than the number of properties in the LLC.

I have found that filing the 1065 for a partnership LLC is simpler when the total asset value is less than 1 million. For example, I don't need to prepare a balance sheet! If the average value of each property is $200k, I would put 4 properties per LLC.

So, I try to balance the complexity and cost of having to manage too many LLCs (for example with each property having its own LLC) with the need to simplify the tax filing process.