Can I buy a rental with a relative through a self-directed IRA?

[Alida Rwabalinda]

Hello everyone!

I have been consuming all the great info from biggerpockets for 18months now but this is my very first post and I am excited to get insights, suggestions and particularly legal advice for my situation.

I recently got laid off from a company that I had been with for 6.5yrs (since right out of college) and then within a month, they offered me another role which is outside US so I am very excited about the change and new experience. I have a 401k balance of less than $100k that's still with the company but because my new role will be international, I won't be able to contribute to my 401k anymore. So my immediate thought is to rollover the balance to a self-directed IRA (between now and August when my new job starts) and buy a rental property. The kink in all of this is that I have $16k balance on a 401k loan that I am still repaying, that I took out to buy my primary residence two years ago. I have been looking into several strategies to pay it off and one of my first cousins (who is an international student in the US) has saved up $15k and would like to partner with me/ lend me the money to buy the rental.

My strategy was to use his money to pay off my 401k loan balance and then do the roll over into a self-directed IRA to buy the rental under my name so that he has the option to live in it (if it's a multi family) and rent the rest.

I have done a great deal of research and it looks like as long as I don't live in the rental and also make sure that all the transactions are done within the IRA, then it should be straightforward. But then again, since I will now be using some funds from my cousin, I want to be sure that there are no additional criteria or restrictions that I have to consider when structuring everything before moving forward with the plan to avoid penalties.

Thank you all in advance!

Alida