All Forum Posts by: Costel A.

@Mark Nolan Thank you, Mark. Very useful information. It looks like solo 401k is better for my situation. I'm still not sure if I still need to use nonrecourse loans for solo 401k. I just talked to a hard lender and he said that it doesn't offer nonrecourse loans in my state. 

Since I don't have enough cash in hands I decided to use money from my 403(b) retirement fund. I created a self-directed IRA with a custodian company. I don't have too much into my 403(b) either, only $60,000, not enough to buy a property, rehab it and sell it back unless I go to very cheap areas where nobody wants to move. I talked to my CPA about my situation and he said that I need money from hard money lenders or from banks that can give me a commercial loan. I asked him what is the first step at the moment and he said "create an LLc for your business". And I did it! At the moment I am aproved by a hard lending company and my check from Fidelity just arrived at the custodian IRA company. I thought that by next week I'll be able to start. I was wrong!

Talking back to the custodian IRA company yesterday they informed me that I can't use an LLC!!! The custodian IRA is the owner of every property I'm buying and if I need more money I need to find a bank that can give me a nonrecourse loan, meaning their only collateral is the property itself. I thought that this is exactly what the hard money companies are doing. However, on a second thought, the hard money asked me a lot of questions about the all my private assets. Why would they need such information if they can't go after my assets if things go south? Or can they?

@Whitney Hutten I would definitely do only one deal and go through all the steps involved. I can't afford more than one deal at a time anyway, I don't have too much cash saved. That's why it's important that my first deal to be successful. Thank you for the advice.

Well, I guess everyone has a happy story.  :))

I'm hearing about a lot of success stories and they are very motivating. However, I want to hear the other side, the bad stories, some mistakes you did and you wish you didn't, overpaying for a house, dishonest wholesaler, contractor, hard money lender, anything a newbie like myself needs to be aware before jumping on a deal. Thank you.

I've seen a few charts a few days ago indicating that the housing market is going to cool down in 2017. Others even see a recession in 2017. 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/real-estate-pros-see...

I'm close to make my move on my first property, but I am a little bit concerned by the news. 

Any thoughts about this?

Thank you.

@Clayton Mobleyand @Dave Foster, thank you guys, that was very useful information. 

@John 

@John K. I am no longer working for the company. I am retired now.

@Matt Motil I'm hearing about Self Directed IRA for the first time. I will read more about this. Thank you.

@Brian Eastman Thank you for your detailed replay. It's reassuring to hear that I can use this money and that it can stay in a tax-sheltered retirement plan at the same time. That's what I understood from other forums so I was very disappointed today when Fidelity told me about taxes and penalties. I will definitely read as much information as I can from this website. I only joined it a few days ago. Thanks again for the information. All the best!

I have a 403(k) retirement plan with Fidelity. I talked to them today about using some of my retirement money to start investing in real estate. They said that I need to transfer this money to an IRA then I'll have more freedom, I can withdraw the money and it's up to me if I want to put the money back later or not. For this I am going to be penalized (10%) and I also have to pay taxes on the withdrawn amount. I knew this would happen if I just wanted to take some money out before being 60, but since I am using the money for investing I was hoping that I am not going to pay any taxes or to be penalized since I am just switching from stock and bonds to RE. Maybe they didn't pay attention when I said I want to invest this money not to buy a nice car.

Any thoughts about this?