3 DST Considerations for Financial Planners

DSTs can be complicated. In this article, we are going to talk about three things financial planners should consider when approaching DSTs.

Leverage

One important thing to consider is whether or not there is leverage on the replacement investments and is that debt allocable to the co-purchasers in the DST? Some DSTs are 50% levered – the underlying assets already have debt on them up to 50%. So when you put a dollar into that DST and you’ve allocated the 50% leverage, your real buying power is 2 dollars for every dollar that you put in. That’s going to be important when you’re determining your ceiling under the 200% rule because the value of what you’re buying isn’t just the equity that you’re putting in, but also the debt that’s allocable to you. Be aware that if you’re buying a leveraged DST, that DST may take up more bandwidth under the 200% rule than you had anticipated.

Tax Documents

The next thing to think about is what kind of tax document the DST sponsor is going to send you for completing your taxes. You may receive an alternative 1099 while you’re in the DST stage. If that DST then later converts under a 721 contribution to an UPREIT, you may eventually receive a K-1. So talk to the DST sponsor and understand what tax documents you’ll be receiving.

Identification

Another thing we need to discuss is identification. You still need to identify the underlying real estate that’s comprised of this DST. You want to ask the DST sponsor if they can provide you with the address, legal description, county tax assessor’s numbers, etc. You want to be able to clearly and unambiguously describe that real estate and it would be wonderful if the sponsor could simply provide you an exhibit that gives the full description of the underlying assets. You can append that to you identification form to fully identify what you’re getting as part of the DST.

1031 Exchange Company

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