Real Estate in Your IRA

With the turmoil in the stock market, more and more people have been
asking me about how to put real estate into their IRA. Real estate
give you the opportunity to have a rental income as opposed to stocks
were you would get dividend income. Either investment obviously offers
appreciation. Just today I met with a client who was curious about how
he might diversify by purchasing a rental property for his IRA.

Not every stock broker is set-up to allow you to hold real estate in your IRA.
It's very likely that you would need to roll it over into a different
company that does allow this. Your Roth IRA, your 401(k), your step IRA,
your health savings plan... are all vehicles that could be used. You can
put any type of real estate, except for real estate that you would personally
use, into your IRA. It is a little more complex than that, obviously, but
the key is this: "Am I holding it for investment purposes? And am I not
using it?" Personal use is a prohibited transaction... so don't even go down
that road.

I have written some of the basic rules about this concept and have them
posted on my BuyDurango.com website. Here is a link to the page on that
particular subject: http://buydurango.com/investing/ira.htm

I am certain that this will cause you to have questions, so please feel
free to give me a call and I'll see what I can do to help. This is not
for everyone by any means, but perhaps it's a fit for you.