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What's Your Real Estate Giving Method? These Options Will Help You Decide.

From homes and ranches to mineral rights, you can benefit from donating real estate. Use our guide to identify ideal gifting methods.

By Torie Noellsch

July 16, 2025

From more common types of properties like homes and ranches to lesser-thought-of gems like mineral rights, you can experience significant benefits in donating real estate to the Texas A&M Foundation. But how you choose to donate is just as important as what you choose to gift.

With a combined 62 years of experience, our real estate experts have seen and done it all and are well equipped to help you tailor a plan that best achieves your goals. Start by browsing the options below to quickly identify what method of giving might fit your unique needs. 
 

Select a Gift for Your Goals

Bequest in Living Trust

Your goal: Give after your lifetime and avoid probate.

How to make your gift: Name the Texas A&M Foundation as a beneficiary in your living trust.

Your benefits: 

  • Revocable
  • Lifelong control and protection of assets
  • No probate
  • Privacy
  • Reduced estate tax liability

Bequest in Will

Your goal: Give after your lifetime.

How to make your gift: Name the Texas A&M Foundation as a beneficiary in your will.

Your benefits: 

  • Revocable
  • Lifelong control of assets
  • Easily created
  • Reduced estate tax liability

Transfer on Death Deed (TODD)

Your goal: Give after your lifetime and avoid probate.

How to make your gift: Sign and record the TODD naming the Texas A&M Foundation as the owner upon your death.

Your benefits: 

  • Revocable
  • Lifelong control of assets
  • No probate
  • Reduced estate tax liability

Outright Gift

Your goal: Make a current gift and maximize the charitable income tax deduction.

How to make your gift: Deed your property to the Texas A&M Foundation.

Your benefits: 

  • Your gift impacts Texas A&M during your life
  • Property ownership burdens removed
  • Immediate charitable income tax deduction
  • Capital gains taxes bypassed

Charitable Remainder Unitrust

Your goal: Secure significant payments and create a hedge against inflation.

How to make your gift: Create a trust that generates payments; the remainder benefits Texas A&M.

Your benefits: 

  • Payments for life
  • Property ownership burdens removed
  • Immediate charitable income tax deduction
  • No up-front capital gains taxes

Retained Life Estate

Your goal: Give your personal residence, farm or ranch now but continue using your property.

How to make your gift: Deed your property to the Texas A&M Foundation but retain occupancy and use.

Your benefits: 

  • Lifetime use of residence or farm/ranch
  • Immediate charitable income tax deduction
  • No probate
  • Capital gains taxes bypassed
  • Reduced estate tax liability

 

 

 

 

How Donors Used These Methods for Their Benefit

From Music City to Aggieland: How Melanie and Mark Pool ’77 Are Turning Their Real Estate Investment Into Aggie Opportunities

The Pools gift their Nashville-area townhome to the Texas A&M Foundation to create agriculture and education scholarships.

These Aggies Enjoy Their Texas Farm, a Tax Break and Paying Their Success Forward

Drs. Ehrikka Hodge Messer ’94 and Ivan Messer ’86 ’87 ’94 find a flexible way to enjoy their land and plant a legacy rooted in education.

This Former Student Struck Success With a Scholarship Fueled by Mineral Interests

Thanks to a groundbreaking gift of minerals for engineering students, Joshua Ficarro '17 is living his dream as a civil engineer.

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Contact

  • Tim Walton '90

  • Assistant Vice President for Real Estate Services
  • Real Estate Services
  • Call: 979.321.6409

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