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Church executes a suspicious land swap.
Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 10:52 am
by _Bazooka
Two real estate arms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have swapped ownership of land in the outer suburbs of Phoenix.
Property Reserve Inc. has sold at least 16 parcels to Suburban Land Reserve Inc. for $104.2 million, according to Maricopa County records.
Both companies are real estate affiliates of the Mormon Church. Both are also major buyers of real estate across the U.S.
Real estate industry officials say the land sale between LDS brethren companies involves land on the outskirts of the Valley, including parcels near and along the Loop 303 in the West Valley as well possibly as much as 1,000-acres of land in Pinal County. The West Valley land is near the Prasada development.
Suburban Land is one of the development interests at the Prasada development at Loop 303. Glendale spokeswoman Julie Watters said the West Valley land in the deal that is slated to be annexed by her city.
Property Reserve and Suburban Land executives in Utah could not be reached for comments Friday.
The two Mormon entities have exchanged land before. Again, real estate industry officials said such a transaction could be done for tax purposes or to switch from a holding entity to a development entity.
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news ... -104m.html
Re: Church executes a suspicious land swap.
Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 9:05 pm
by _ZelphtheGreat
Could it be for the purpose of boosting/establishing 'value' so when sale time comes they can claim it is worth much more than they would have received otherwise?
If they know something is going to happen that might increase value and so this type of thing are they possibly in violation of any type of insider trading or similar laws?
Re: Church executes a suspicious land swap.
Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 2:04 am
by _kairos
Not sure if this is tied into the situation but recall when the housing crisis hit in 2008-09 in phoenix, Mormon builder ira fulton's empire was rapidly losing value. he had purchased land for building new homes and the new home market which had been red hot became ice cold. ira was in debt for the land and no homes were being built. in stepped the Mormon church and inexplicably paid 70million for land fulton owned. at the time a real estate analyst wondered why did the lds church pay so much for the land.
clearly this was bailout for fulton who had donated literally millions to the church and to asu for Mormon causes. even with the bail out, fulton faced and may have gone through bankruptcy. at the time the fulton family was accused of fixing the books by putting positive assets into the family trust to shield it from the courts/creditors.
now fulton is back in business- signs for fulton home developments are all over the east phx area where we have a home.
if the church's financial transactions were not hidden, i am sure a dead rat would pop up on the fulton bailout.
just sayin
k
Re: Church executes a suspicious land swap.
Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 5:38 am
by _bcspace
If someone brought green jello to a non Mormon party you'd be suspicious.
Re: Church executes a suspicious land swap.
Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 5:43 am
by _cwald
BC, why do you and Ludd have almost identical avatars? What gives with you heretical apologetic faithful types and the long hair? Is it the whole living by proxy thing?
Re: Church executes a suspicious land swap.
Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 9:16 am
by _suniluni2
Bazooka wrote:The two Mormon entities have exchanged land before. Again, real estate industry officials said such a transaction could be done for tax purposes or to switch from a holding entity to a development entity.
Seems reasonable, what's suspicious to you?
Re: Church executes a suspicious land swap.
Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 9:20 am
by _Bazooka
bcspace wrote:If someone brought green jello to a non Mormon party you'd be suspicious.
Only if they swapped it for funeral potatoes.....
Re: Church executes a suspicious land swap.
Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 9:24 am
by _Bazooka
suniluni2 wrote:The two Mormon entities have exchanged land before. Again, real estate industry officials said such a transaction could be done for tax purposes or to switch from a holding entity to a development entity.
Seems reasonable, what's suspicious to you?
Unfortunately being suspicious is an occupational hazard of mine.
When the executives of either company can be reached for comment and clarify the intent behind the deal the needle on my suspicionometer will return to its resting position....
Re: Church executes a suspicious land swap.
Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 9:47 am
by _Spanner
That last sentence talking about routine transfers between holding and development entities makes sense. Having no idea what the tax situation is in the US, down here, land developers attract different, much higher, tax regimes. Long term investors go to considerable lengths to avoid being "tainted" as developers because all future income and capital growth attracts higher taxes. Investors, or those "holding" land/property have a much more benign tax situation.
So the movement probably indicates that the land in question is about to change purpose. That could be interesting to follow. Are there zoning changes planned for the area?
Re: Church executes a suspicious land swap.
Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 3:17 pm
by _moksha
kairos wrote: i am sure a dead rat would pop up on the Fulton bailout.
just sayin
k
No dead rats were involved, just one member of the Church Finance Committee being helped out by fellow Committee members. All above board with a collegial wink and nudge air handshake in a double z-snap follow through sort of way.