[epistasis]

Agreed. Though I think that legal entities like this need to have far far more public documentation of beneficial ownership, traceable all the way back to real people, be they US citizens or not.

This goes doubly so for any sort of land ownership. Nobody should be able to hide ownership of US land via shell games.

[jeffbee]

I'm fine with it as long as your standard also applies to family trusts. LLCs are relatively open compared to trusts. I also think people greatly overestimate the opacity of land ownership records. I just download all of the parcel maps, assessments, tax bills, and ownership data from my county assessor every year. Then people are amazed that I can answer easy question about who owns what. It seems simple to me.

[epistasis]

Agreed on this too. A favorite hobby of mine is to look up the land ownership of people that speak at city meetings to oppose land use changes that would allow for more housing in an area.

A huge fraction of the people decrying new homes already own many parcels directly in their own name. And if the opponent is decrying "these apartments aren't affordable enough" you can be pretty sure to find a recent apartment ad renting a worse apartment at a higher price.

Which is funny, since using an LLC per parcel is probably a better strategy for the nasty landlord behavior.