InvestorLoft Real Estate Investing Blog

It’s no secret – real estate is a great investment. People invest in real estate and sometimes don’t even know it. Many employer-sponsored retirement plans have REITs as investment options and they’re included in those pre-formulated investment models (Target 2025 Retirement Model, for example) and as á la carte options that people invariably click.

But what most people don’t know, however, is that you can have a house in your IRA. Or even an apartment building…land…a condo. It’s all possible – you just have to think outside the brokerage account.

Real estate is what’s referred to as a non-correlated asset. In other words, its performance isn’t dictated by the performance of the equity and fixed income markets. Thus, it’s a valuable diversifier for your investment portfolio and can act to offset losses should the stock and bond markets go haywire.

Using real estate in your IRA has been allowed by the IRS since the 70s, so why don’t more people know about it (and why isn’t your stock broker telling you about it?)? Well, it’s because pre-packaged solutions provided by wirehouses, online brokerages and financial advisors are easy to sell and cost little to maintain. Having a real estate or self-directed IRA that can invest in real estate actually takes some education and a knowledge of what you’re buying. And – here’s the kicker – your financial advisor doesn’t make a commission on that self-directed IRA you’re going to open because he can’t open one for you. That’s the most common reason you haven’t heard about it.

One fo the best places to learn about the benefits of a self-directed IRA that can hold real estate is through Equity Trust Company. They have an incredible library of resources for every level of investor. Just click here and you’ll be brought to their Virtual Library. All of their resources are free, so just sign up and open the oyster to your financial future online. While real estate in your IRA isn’t for everyone, learning something new never hurt!

Tags: Real Estate IRA, Self-Directed IRA and Real Estate IRA

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 at 11:45 am and is filed under Real Estate Investment News, Self-Directed IRA and Real Estate IRA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.