Real Estate Gift Services
Real estate holdings make up 30% to 40% of the assets of most families facing estate planning, retirement, and charitable decisions. Over the next 50 years decisions will be made regarding the transfer of from $12 trillion to $16 trillion of real estate assets in this country. This represents a tremendous opportunity for non-profit organizations and private property owners to work together to develop tax-wise solutions creating billions of dollars of charitable gifts. As contributions of cash and securities remain hard to come by in this challenging economic climate, more and more development departments are ramping up their efforts to pro-actively attract high-quality real estate gifts, while minimizing risk.
In fact, according to a national survey on real estate gifts published in the Fall 2008 Journal of Gift Planning, 13% of responding non-profits reported that in recent years they had received over 10% of their gifts, measured in dollars, as real estate gifts.
Either working directly with non-profit clients, or in partnership with development consultants or campaign consultants, Bidwell Advisors works with non-profits of all sizes to help them attract the right real estate gifts, and to help them structure and close those gifts.
Dennis Bidwell is very knowledgeable of the intricacies of real estate gifts. Thanks to him we recently completed a gift of mid-west farmland from a donor living abroad. Dennis has also worked with us to develop a policy document on real estate gifts, conducted a training session for Development staff, and helped us decide to decline a gift of property that had more potential problems than benefits. We greatly value his advice and counsel.
Janice M. Albano, Associate Treasurer, Mount Holyoke College
Services For Non-Profits and Development Consultants
- Help non-profits initiate or expand a real estate gifts program.
- Integrate a real estate gifts component into capital campaigns.
- Provide workshops and training on real estate gift options for development staff, senior management, boards of trustees, professional advisors and donor prospects.
- Develop a marketing strategy for a real estate gifts initiative.
- Help prospect researchers identify well-qualified real estate gift prospects.
- Work with prospects to develop the gift structure that works best for the property owner and the non-profit:
- outright gift
- charitable remainder trust
- charitable gift annuity
- retained life estate/remainder interest
- bargain sale
- fractional interest gift
- charitable lead trust
- Conduct after-tax financial analysis comparing various gift structures, from the perspective of the donor and the donee.
- Craft gift acceptance letters that detail the proposed gift arrangement and conditions, while providing a blueprint of the steps to be taken by the parties in order to bring the gift to a successful closing.
- Coordinate due diligence investigations, e.g. environmental assessments, title searches, appraisals, marketability analyses, etc.
- Manage the sale of gift properties.
- Help attract and structure conservation-oriented real estate gifts.