Quick answer: Across Central Pennsylvania, many landlords share the same quiet fact: the next generation does not want the buildings. The options generally run from professional management to simplifying over your lifetime, and every path works better when it is planned in one room with your family, your tax professional, and your advisor. PAC Financial in Harrisburg helps families run that conversation. Call (717) 564-6400, ext. 181.
It usually surfaces at a holiday table. The daughter is in Pittsburgh, the son travels for work, and neither wants a phone call about a water heater in February. The buildings built the family's wealth. That does not mean the family wants to run them.
It is a common situation among property owners across Dauphin, Cumberland, Lebanon, and Perry counties, and it is nobody's failure. A building is a business. Most heirs did not sign up to run one.
Why don't heirs want rental properties?
Careers somewhere else, lives built at a distance, and the honest arithmetic of the work: tenants, maintenance, insurance, taxes, vacancies. Owning a building is a job. Inheriting one is being hired for a job you never applied for.
What are the options when the next generation says no?
Generally four, and none of them is urgent. Keep everything and hire professional management. Keep the buildings and build a liquid account beside them, so the estate is not all bricks. Simplify gradually during your lifetime, selling on your own schedule. Or some combination. Which is right depends on facts no article can know, and the tax and legal sides of any of these paths belong with your tax professional and your attorney. We coordinate with both. If a sale is part of the picture, the first call isn't the one you think.
What does a liquid account change for heirs?
| From an heir's seat | The buildings | A liquid account |
|---|---|---|
| Day-to-day | Tenants, repairs, February phone calls | Statements, not service calls |
| Dividing among siblings | One roof, several heirs | Generally divisible without selling anything |
| Reaching money | Listing, settlement, months | Generally days |
A building needs a property owner. A portfolio needs a steward. Part of continuity planning is choosing an advisor the next generation can reasonably keep. Tucker Nicholas is a Private Wealth Advisor at PAC Financial in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He is 28, at a firm that has been family-owned in Harrisburg since 1972, which means the person at the table can still be at the table when the transition actually happens.
Consider a hypothetical: three siblings inherit one well-kept building in Annville. One wants to keep it, one wants the money, one wants not to think about it. Nothing about the building caused the problem. The shape of the asset did.
How does a family start this conversation?
One meeting, everyone in the room: you, the kids who want to be there, your tax professional, and us, plus your attorney where estate documents are involved. No one is asked to decide anything in the first meeting. Call (717) 564-6400, ext. 181.
This material is for general information only and is not investment, tax, or legal advice, nor a recommendation of any specific security or strategy. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. PAC Financial does not provide tax or legal advice; consult a qualified tax professional and attorney about your situation. PAC Financial provides investment advisory and brokerage services and receives compensation for those services; depending on the services selected, accounts are advisory or brokerage, and the differences and costs of each are explained in writing before any account is opened. Securities and advisory services offered through Osaic Wealth, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. PAC Financial and Osaic Wealth, Inc. are separately owned and other entities and/or marketing names, products or services referenced here are independent of Osaic Wealth, Inc. Check the background of your financial professional on FINRA's BrokerCheck. Tucker P. Nicholas is registered in PA, CO, and DE. PAC Financial, 5291 Devonshire Road, Harrisburg, PA 17112, (717) 564-6400.