My opinion is that a cattle ranch will be much more valuable than a safe full of gold, in the event of such a massive downturn.  

There is likely a price at which you would feel safe and excited purchasing all these homes for.

@Dominique Grayson, Wow, seems like I would be offering at $120K to be on the safe side.

The ROI is pretty good and it's in a central but not safe area of the town.

Ask questions and get your work done quickly and safely.

What other safe ways to transfer or other vehicles?

You are lucky to live in Tampa as it is a hot market and in my view there are "safe and solid" rental opportunities from $70,000 upwards.

Im more worried about losing deals from being too safe due to lack of experience. 

The second major problem is that it seems like the Gold IRA industry is very fishy, lawsuits are common and fake reviews are everywhere.So I have this idea which I'm not sure of its feasibility: Establish an IRA LLC, buy physical coins using the LLC's checking account and store it in my local bank safe deposit box.

In this scenario the hard-money lender is very safe because he should be able to quick sell the property for the amount of the loan, even if it is mid-demo.The lender is also protected in another scenario, where you can't sell for a good price so you decide to rent it out.