Leveraging retirement funds to start investing

[Ross Yeager]

I am 28 with a substantial income through my software engineering day job.  Over the past couple of years, I have accrued a substantial amount of cash in my retirement funds (401k and Roth 401k).  This has made up a majority of my savings (1/3 normal savings, 2/3 retirement funds).  I have been reading about ups/downs of taking out a loan against my retirement fund, and curious as to what the community has to say about this.  In retrospect, with my income stream and entrepreneurial spirit I wish I did not have so much locked up in retirement so that I could be using it to dive into some real estate investment (targeting multi-family duplex).  Any advice here? 

[Karen O.]

@Ross Yeager,

@Dmitriy Fomichenko is a good source for the info you seek.

My 2 cents, if you're planning to stay employed at your current w-2, you'll need to determine if an in-service distribution is even possible.  In my experience, they aren't standard.  Thus, your primary options to access these retirement funds may be via a loan, which is usually limited to $50K and which you'll be paying yourself back over the course of years while you are still in service - or - waiting until you leave this employer to be able to transfer the entire balance to an SDIRA.  And of course, in the future, you have the option to save up outside the 401k.

 Best of luck.