About Us

               BlackAcre 1031 Exchange Services LLC. BlackAcre works as Qualified Intermediary for real estate investors that seek to utilize the benefits of Section 1031 of the Federal Tax Code. Section 1031 tax deferred exchanges, also known as Starker exchanges or Like-Kind exchanges, help sellers legally avoid/defer capital gains taxes if they comply with statutory requirements and a series of strict rules and regulations associated with Section 1031. Primarily, the Taxpayer must roll their equity from the Relinquished Property into other investment real estate. Robert likes Section 1031 – and the U.S. government supports this policy – because, in general, it leads to improved housing, more jobs and citizens moving toward financial freedom. Other policy reasons for support of Section 1031 include that it is a continuation of the same investment, and overall, it stimulates the economy more than if the investor simply paid capital gains taxes.

                    Robert M. Levenson, Esquire is a member of the Maryland Bar who, despite his youth, has been involved in real estate and finance for almost 30 years. He credits his parents with getting him started in real estate. Robert helped his parents (Dad is a clergyman and Mom is an educator) manage their small real estate portfolio in Kansas City, where he grew up. The Levenson family got started in real estate from scratch, when Robert was in seventh grade and they were figuring out how to pay for college for Robert and his brother and two sisters. Robert bought his first piece of investment real estate when he was 23 and has been a Real Estate investor ever since.

                      In the past four years, Robert has accommodated more than a thousand exchange transactions throughout the country (31 states + the District of Columbia at last count) with properties worth almost $2 billion ($2,000,000,000.00) dollars. Prior to starting BlackAcre, Robert held the position of Vice President in the Section 1031 division of a Fortune 600 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. They recruited Robert to establish their 1031 exchange practice in the Washington metropolitan region and he quickly created one of the company’s top offices nationwide. Robert has recently lectured on exchanges in New Jersey, North Carolina, Florida, Massachusetts, and New York City as well as throughout the Mid-Atlantic region including the Washington County (Maryland) Real Estate Investors Association and the Baltimore Real Estate Investors Association. In addition, Robert teaches an accredited continuing education class in Section 1031 Exchanges for Agents and Brokers in Maryland and DC. His course has been sponsored by prominent real estate brokers and settlement companies.

                         In addition to his experience as a Qualified Intermediary, Mr. Levenson has worked in just about every area of the real estate world. He has worked as an attorney, real estate broker, lender, broker of real-estate secured notes on the secondary market, property manager and investor. In each of these roles, he has demonstrated superior initiative, client interaction skills and outstanding problem solving aptitude. He makes it easy for his clients and customers to succeed and he believes in real estate.

                           After inventing and marketing a consumer pet product, he worked for four years providing technical assistance to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Over the course of his tenure as a government contractor, his various projects had a total of more than 200 staff reporting to him. In 2001, he returned to law school for a full year of additional coursework. During that year, he had clerkships in the Office of General Counsel for Ginnie Mae (GNMA), at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) implementing a program that rescues people at risk of losing their homes as a result of predatory lending, and also at Manna, Inc., the largest community development corporation in the DC. As a law student, he represented clients in their cases and controversies with the IRS (Tax Clinic).

Mr. Levenson received his J.D. from The American University’s Washington College of Law in 1994 and returned there for a full year of coursework during the 2001-2002. In 1986, he earned a B.A. in Inter-national Relations from Boston University. Working as a computer programmer just out of college, he customized sales and marketing, direct mail and telemarketing software for corporate America (customers included AT&T and CitiCorp) while he continued real estate investing. Mr. Levenson keeps working because he enjoys the challenges of 1031 exchanges and he promised his 5 girls a pony.