Recommendations on Self Directed IRA's

[Brendan Connolly]

I'm looking at moving my 401K into a self directed IRA. I wanted to see if anyone had any recommendations on which company is the best to do this.

After calling around, Equity Trust seems like it offers the most benefits to it's customers by allowing for a wide range of investment opportunities and they definitely seemed to have the best customer service for the companies that I called. 

They do seem to have some high fees though ($750 annually and $1,295 LLC setup if you want to use the funds for real estate). I'm ok with that if the customer service is good.

Does anyone have any recommendations for companies that you use for self directed IRA's that might be a better fit than Equity Trust? 

[Brett Synicky]

Quote from @Brendan Connolly:

I'm looking at moving my 401K into a self directed IRA. I wanted to see if anyone had any recommendations on which company is the best to do this.

After calling around, Equity Trust seems like it offers the most benefits to it's customers by allowing for a wide range of investment opportunities and they definitely seemed to have the best customer service for the companies that I called. 

They do seem to have some high fees though ($750 annually and $1,295 LLC setup if you want to use the funds for real estate). I'm ok with that if the customer service is good.

Does anyone have any recommendations for companies that you use for self directed IRA's that might be a better fit than Equity Trust? 

There are a couple of different types of SDIRA's. One where you have checkbook control (aka checkbook IRA) and one where you have to go through the custodian for all transactions, and custodian is on title fbo your IRA. With checkbook IRA, a special purpose LLC is created that is wholly owned by your IRA, that you are the manager of which is what allows you to bypass the custodian when investing. Either of these types of setups can invest in real estate, so technically you don't need the LLC. Without it, going through the custodian for everything can cause delays, red tape, and additional fees but are generally less to set up than checkbook IRA since no LLC is needed and the company will make more over the long term with the higher ongoing fees. Either way works, just educate yourself on the differences before you pull the trigger.