@Cassandra Sifford If you need to give your credit a quick shot in the arm. 

Digital Media4. 

The way that it works is they are daily interest loans, generally have no payment requirements during the life of the loan, however the equity of the property gets ate up every day. the bank is probably not going to ask them to leave the property when equity position is upside down. short sale is usually an option via arms length transaction, or payments can generally be made for loan paydown and eventual refi once get loan to a more favorable LTV. feel free to PM if you have questions!

Base it on what you need it to do.Mine started as a simple (for me...LOL) set of digital forms, that grew into full software...so be careful.

You can invest it in real estate, stocks etc. my cup of tea is investing in mortgage notes where I know a lot of passive investors use their IRA to invest because it is mailbox money when your buying performing notes and typically they have plenty of equity and provide double digit returns

Payed an arm and a leg in taxes this year (I know not a bad problem to have) and want to reduce the cost next year.

Then I called with Republic, and the VP I was talking with was also a new investor, so that was cool, but the best he could do is a 20yr amoritization, with a 10yr ARM and then a balloon payment.   

My options through this local bank are either a 20, 25, or 30 year 5-1 arm all at 5.25%.

My experience was positive; I am sure that the agent made all the difference, regardless of how she came recommended.Of potential interest: A couple of the offers - “insultingly” below my asking price - were from some LPs/LLCs, one of which was definitely a REI arm of a large private equity firm.

With almost all classes of real estate (including commercial) trading at single digit returns---low single digits at that---it doesn't seem like there are very attractive options at this point.