What Should an Experienced Investor Do with IRA $10k?

Question

I only have $10k in an IRA that I can spend at this point with a goal of monthly cash flow.  It's a bit under what's required for a note, which would have been my preference.  I can crowdfund it on a multi, but where we usually invest, we wouldn't see anything for a couple of years and nothing substantial for three.  I'd only consider a mobile home with land, but it's clearly not enough.  Not really enough to lend, either.  I want to avoid another mortgage, but even if I were to use it as a down, that wouldn't leave me enough for repairs to prepare it for rent.  A no-down situation (which would leave me that for repairs) likely would have a high payment.  Other than looking for another crowdfunding platform which could pay a monthly return on investments, I'm stumped.  Any ideas?  I'm looking at 70 with no flipping experience, and I'm not keen on starting now.  Thanks.

Russell Brazil · Answer

Index fund

Wendy Black · Answer

Dmitriy:

It's the remainder of spendable income in a Vanguard self-directed IRA. I'm going to partner it with my hubby's IRA for a another note.

Dmitriy Fomichenko · Answer

@Wendy Black

With such low amount available your alternative investment options would be limited. Therefore self-directed IRA would not make a lot of sense. Just invest in Vanguard Total Stock Market mutual fund. This is no load, low expense ratio fund, and if you are concerned about the market just spread your investment over few months, use dollar cost averaging strategy.

Wendy Black · Answer

Since it's in an IRA, I can't mix it with any of our other funds.  Per the S&P, the market's too volatile.  At our age, there'd be no time to make up any losses should it tank.  We really got hit with repairs on a couple of properties over the past few months.  I think maybe the best move would be to tell our notes guy to keep an eye out for something inexpensive.

Charles Carillo · Answer

@Wendy Black

There are not many options for $10k but you could put that into a S&P 500 index fund until you had enough to invest. You could also partner with someone and handle most of the legwork while they handled most of the financing.