I max out my SEP IRA, 401K, and HSA to reduce my tax burden.

Has anyone used a self directed IRA to purchase real estate? 

OR is US based software that can be used without having to use US based elements.I am not sure if the majority of US based systems have US centric aspects built into the software or can be used omitting the non relevant items for Canadians (as most know here, we use RRSPs not 401(k)s, TFSAs not ROth IRAs, partnership income not K1s etc).Thanks!

Dawn and all,Great discussion going on here.I am in the midst of my first property purchase of a buy and hold that I am doing as a 3-way LLC with family members, all using our IRA monies with no borrowing due to not being able to find a non recourse lender for this particular property (age, price, etc)It has become apparent that to grow our real estate business to 'the next level' we will need to find Private Money to leverage our IRA assets.

I took out a HELOC and robbed my Roth IRA.

I was wondering if someone could please shed some light on what the criteria are to show to the IRA that this vacation was indeed for business purposes.

Roth accounts allow you to hedge against higher taxes in the future (more likely than not, in my opinion), and RE investment can help save taxes now, while still providing income now and into the future.RE is part of my retirement plan, but so are IRAs and 401Ks.As a side note, I had a professor during my freshman year of college (a financial planner) who recommended we save for retirement as if Social Security was not going to be there for us. 

What is the difference between the self-directed IRA and solo IRA?

I live in Henderson Nv and have an IRA I inherited from my deceased mother, and would like to form a checkbook control self directed IRA/LLC for the purposes of purchasing an absentee owned business and have chosen Preferred Trust Company in Nevada for my custodial account.

We even get the retirement saving tax credit for funding IRAs and a 401k.