@Drew PoniewazAs George indicated, location is generally not the primary deciding factor when selecting a provider for a self-directed IRA or 401k based retirement plan.This is a very specialty field, with a handful of providers.There are about 3-4 dozen companies that act as custodians, basically processing the investments you direct them to execute on behalf of your IRA account. 

The safe harbor applies to amounts paid during the tax year to acquire or produce what the regs call a “unit of property” (UOP), you must meet these requirements: (1) at the beginning of the tax year, the taxpayer has written accounting procedures treating as an expense for non-tax purposes amounts paid for property costing less than a specified dollar amount (which will be 2500 for you), or with an economic useful life of 12 months or less;.(2) the taxpayer treats the amount paid for the property as an expense on its books and records in accordance with its accounting procedures. ( do this on your bookkeeping software or whatever you utilize)(3) the amount paid for the UOP doesn't exceed $2,500. as substantiated by invoice.Note: The cost for the Unit of Property includes additional costs (for example, delivery fees, installation services, or similar costs) if these additional costs are included on the same invoice with the tangible property.Eg:A purchases 100 printers at $500 each for a total cost of $500,000 as indicated by the invoice.

@John Thedford  If I get a blast e mail in my state and public records indicate the person sending it does not own it and they are acting like brokers..

Can we just indicate the garage will being used by us in the lease agreement?

What are some of the indicators that you have seen that the market is nearing its peak?

This is not always the case but likely indicates he is not super busy right now.  

From what you're question indicates, I would highly encourage you to have a Realtor you trust, in your court, serving as your agent.

That is good to look at as you can see they health ratio for them personally and their businesses.If the lease does not disclose sales another indicator they are staying is if they just did a big re-image or update or added a lot of new equipment to the inside of the space.

Joshua Hollandsworth if the city is soliciting input from neighbors, that indicates your proposed use does not conform to the current zoning code.

We have our umbrella policy and some of our properties with Farmers.Farmers costs us more than USAA but as indicated USAA would not provide us an umbrella policy.If you qualify for USAA umbrella policy I suspect it would be the cheapest.