LLC To Manage House Hack
I am interested in getting into rental investments via house hacking. My eventual goal is to own a portfolio of properties outside of my personal residence, but the first two properties I buy will likely be house hack duplexes to get the ball rolling with low down payments.
I understand that in house hacking and FHA loans, I will need to own the property in my own name. I understand the implications of that--not a problem. My question here is whether it's worthwhile to establish an LLC to manage (but not own) my house hack(s).
I want to do this for a few primary reasons. First, I want to have some separation between myself and my tenant. Presenting the property for rent from Property Management, LLC allows me to hold myself out as the "property manager" who happens to live next door rather than the owner of the building that lives on-site. I know there is no legitimate legal separation here since the property would be titled in my name, but it does provide a bit of social distance between myself and my tenant. The tenant's lease would say Property Management, LLC, not my own name, which would mitigate some social awkwardness of the tenant knowing that I am also the owner of the property.
Likewise, if Property Management, LLC is the entity collecting rent and dealing with the tenant, it may provide asset protection benefits in addition to the privacy benefits. If a tenant sues Property Management, LLC, but not myself personally, Property Management, LLC would have very few assets. I know any competent lawyer would search and see that I own the property, but you never know. This is a marginal benefit that gives the outward appearance of separation.
Finally, the last reason I am interested in doing this is to scale it later. My goal is to buy probably two house hack duplexes, then move into a single family residence and keep the two duplexes on the side. I will then scale up my rental portfolio over time with rental properties that will be owned in (most likely) a series LLC. Once I am able, the two original duplexes will also be moved into the series LLC. However, all the while, the properties (both the house hacks and any new investment properties) will be managed by the same Property Management, LLC. No matter if the properties are re-titled, owned by me personally, or owned by a series LLC I control, they all appear the same to my tenants: "Managed by Property Management, LLC." This allows Property Management, LLC to establish brand equity as a landlord from my very first house hack, and it also simplifies some of the accounting / rent collection / etc since I will, for a time, have some properties owned by me personally and some not, but they will all be managed by the same management LLC.
Has anyone pursued this strategy? Is it worthwhile? Keep in mind my intentions to scale later into a more robust network of rentals. The house hacking component will be only the first ~6 years or so. After that I will stop house hacking and start buying rental units with investment property mortgages rather than FHA loans.