My neighbor buys and sells his own house almost yearly. Why?
I live nextdoor to a multi-family rental property that changes ownership on an almost yearly basis. The owner is a local business owner and he's been selling the house back and forth between himself and his business for over a decade. He's listed as the previous eight owners on my tax assessor's site.

I know this because the guy has no published address, nor does his business, and he's instructed his tenants not to give out his phone number to anyone. Which I mean, fine if he's paranoid.. I never would have gone to the effort to find him if he'd just given me a way to get in touch when his plow guy mows my hedges down... but what really gets me now is just plain curiosity. Why would someone pay closing fees year after year on a rental property? Is this some kind of real estate flim-flam I should be taking advantage of?
[{"id": "f9hsedr", "text": "maybe something similar to a 1031 exchange, doesn't sound right though", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f9hye84", "text": "Could be changing the ownership structure, refinancing, etc.  Every year for 10 years is a lot though.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f9hyju4", "text": "Might be a method to incrementally increase basis for capital gain purposes rather than taking a single hit on the sale to a third party.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f9i2gfe", "text": "May be to show a recent transaction at a certain price to keep property taxes down.", "replies": [{"id": "f9i4lgo", "text": "That Wouldn\u2019t work because it\u2019s not an arm\u2019s-length transaction", "replies": [{"id": "f9ik9ss", "text": "It shouldn't but it could.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f9i2ujl", "text": "How big is the property? If it is small, it could be a case of Local Crackpot tries to scam IRS by claiming business deductions he should not. \n\nIf it is like 100 units, then that would be weird.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f9i4fs9", "text": "probably refi", "replies": [{"id": "f9i52bf", "text": "An annual refi?", "replies": [{"id": "f9ifd6n", "text": "who knows.  definitely something shady. plus the guy blocks his number.  the whole thing smells fishy.   usually people that hide that much have a good reason to", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f9i540l", "text": "To be clear - he is not buying or selling it. He is changing title. There are a lot of legitimate reasons why someone changes title but impossible to know with the available information.", "replies": [{"id": "f9im8ir", "text": "Yeah, it could be estate planning stuff, marriage, divorce, in/out of trust, etc.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f9iccx7", "text": "Could potentially be selling it to himself at a lower price point each time so taxes come back lower based on the sale value. My other theory was it\u2019s an easy in-house way of parking 1031 money without having to worry about the tax deadline", "replies": [{"id": "f9nyamk", "text": "Isn't the deadline 180 days?", "replies": [{"id": "f9pdil5", "text": "That\u2019s true. I guess that scratches the 1031 theory off", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "f9jbdrv", "text": "&gt; I never would have gone to the effort to find him if he'd just given me a way to get in touch when his plow guy mows my hedges down... \n\nIf you still need to find the guy, look his companies up on your state's secretary of state's website.  Should have contact info (at minimum a registered agent).", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]