"Some families" interesting language. In Berkeley, where I have comprehensive data on the subject, about 13000 parcels are held by family trusts, in a city with only 29000 parcels. Everybody uses them because it's the best way to scam Prop. 13.
It massively reduces headaches for your descendants upon death but AFAIK it makes no difference in terms of taxes.
Anyone who has a little bit of assets (a single house is enough) would be a fool to not have a living trust.
Apparently there are some potential tax optimization options as well, but I don’t know how that really benefits my particular case. (It’s definitely why we did it.)
Here’s more info:
https://www.scscourt.org/self_help/probate/medical/living_tr...