Cash out of old retirement accounts?

[Daniel Kunimoto]

Through my former jobs, I have about $40K in retirement accounts just sitting there (my current job doesn't have a plan). I have about $10K in savings right now. I am considering cashing out on my old retirement accounts (take the additional tax hit) adding them with some of my savings and getting started with my first house hack.

Any big traps I should be worried about with this plan?

[Chris Seveney]

Quote from @Daniel Kunimoto:

Through my former jobs, I have about $40K in retirement accounts just sitting there (my current job doesn't have a plan). I have about $10K in savings right now. I am considering cashing out on my old retirement accounts (take the additional tax hit) adding them with some of my savings and getting started with my first house hack.

Any big traps I should be worried about with this plan?

Why not transfer the money to a self directed IRA where you can invest it in real estate and not pay the tax hit or penalties? If you run the numbers on what you get after taxes versus what you have you would need to earn 2-3x your returns in order to ever catch up to where you were versus just investing in a SDIRA