MARK KOHLERMain Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, LLC · Owner at Main Street Professionals, LLC

Should You Really Put Every Rental In An LLC?

26 Oct 2025 · 1 min

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1:07

In this segment, real‑estate investor Mark Kohl recounts a common mistake he sees among clients: buying rental properties in several states and automatically setting up a separate LLC for each without a clear operational plan. He illustrates the chaos that arises when property management is undefined, calling this a "shotgun approach" that creates a strategic disadvantage. Kohl stresses that any real‑estate purchase should be backed by a specific strategic advantage—whether it’s immediate equity, risk deferral, or efficient management—and that investors must treat properties as numbers, not sentimental assets. He urges viewers to articulate their strategic reason before forming LLCs. To help, he offers a deal‑analysis spreadsheet, available to followers who email him with the subject line “real estate spreadsheet,” which guides users through evaluating key factors of a deal.

Chapters

I had clients come in so many times over the years. Hey, I just bought some rentals. I need some llc. I'm like, okay, I bought a rental in Dallas. I bought one in Ohio. I got one in Miami, and then I bought one where my grandma is in Minnesota. You bought all those this year? Yeah. Who's your property manager? Well, I don't know. I'm like, oh, my gosh. We set up 4 LLC in four states. Property management's already a train wreck. But they're like, but the deals were so good when you look at them on paper. That's great, but how in the hell are you going to manage this? And it created a strategic disadvantage because that shotgun approach. If you're analyzing a real estate deal, I want to hear your strategic advantage and how you're going to manage it more efficiently. How it's a great deal, how you're going to have equity out of the gate, how you're going to help defer some of the risk because there's internal rental. And maybe some of you are doing it just because you want to teach real estate to your family. We're going to do this as a family. I mean, whatever that strategic reason is, you better have one. You're not buying a house, you're buying numbers. Now, if any of you would like, I have a spreadsheet I send out to followers on my social media and our network of tax pros. And if you want to email me@markjcohler.com and just put in the subject line real estate spreadsheet. So I'll send you a spreadsheet that you can plug in some numbers, and we're going to analyze these four or five factors here in one particular deal and just give you a feel for it.