Show Summary

This is episode #352, and today Darlene Root joins us. There truly is NO better way to build wealth than with real estate, and there are some powerful tools to make this statement even more true. Self-Directed Retirement and Self-Directed Health Savings Accounts are a couple tools that NO real estate investor should be without.
With the rising cost of healthcare in America for you and your family, a self-directed HSA is a powerful tool that if you’re not already using, you need to learn a lot more about. Darlene Root joins us today to share her knowledge on HSA’s, and provide some tips to help you get started to.
As real estate investors, we have a significant advantage over other types of investments to grow the balances in our accounts far faster than traditional investments.
This is incredible information my friends….let’s dive into today’s show.
Please help me welcome Darlene Root to the show!

Highlights of this show

  • Meet Darlene Root, Detroit area real estate investor.
  • Learn more about self-directed health savings accounts.
  • Join the conversation about how to minimize your family’s healthcare costs by using HSA’s, and how you can magnify the benefits with real estate.

Resources and Links from this show:

Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

FlipNerd Show Transcript:

Mike:This is the FlipNerd.com Expert Real Estate Investing Show, the show for real estate investors, whether you’re a veteran or brand new. I’m your host, Mike Hambright and each week I bring you a new expert guest that will share their knowledge and lessons with you. If you’re excited about real estate investing, believe in personal responsibility and taking control of your life and financial destiny, you’re in the right place.
This is episode number 352 and today Darlene Root joins us on the show. There truly is no better way to build wealth than with real estate and there are some powerful tools to make this statement even more true. Self-directed retirement accounts and self-directed health savings accounts are just a couple of tools that no real estate investor should be out. With the rising costs of healthcare in America for you and your family, a self-directed health savings account, or an HAS, is a powerful tool that if you’re not already using it, you simply must learn more about it.
Darlene Root joins us today to share her knowledge on HSAs and provide some tips for you to get started. As real estate investors, we have a significant advantage over other types of investments to grow the balances in our accounts. This is incredible information, my friends. Let’s dive in to today’s show. Please help me welcome Darlene Root to the show.
Darlene, welcome to the show.
Darlene:Thanks so much, Mike. I really appreciate it.
Mike:Yeah, excited to have you here. I think we’ve been stalking you for a while and we finally got you on.
Darlene:Yeah. It was hit or missed a couple of times, so we finally did and this is going to be fun.
Mike:Yeah. Well, we’re going to talk about building wealth with retirement accounts today and we have had other custodians—not other custodians, you’re not a custodian, you’re an investor. So, I always appreciate talking about wealth building with non-custodians and with custodians if you’re one of the folks that have been our show before, not like I’m trying to say we didn’t enjoy having you on, but there’s a different discussion for the everyday investor that is actually using these tools versus somebody that makes a living selling or trying to convince you to use those tools.
So, I’m excited to talk about it. Before we get started, I know you do a lot of stuff with retirement accounts. We’re in a mastermind group together. You talk about this stuff a lot and it’s very inspiring, but before we get started, maybe you can take a couple minutes to tell us who Darlene is. Tell us a little bit more about you.
Darlene:Yeah. So, I started in real estate in 1979. I was 19, just turned 19 years old. I got my real estate license back when women really were not in the industry too much. So, I did it kind of on a bet. My sister Michelle, if you’re watching, thank you for dragging me into this crazy business. I wanted to be a rock star. Apparently my family didn’t think I was good enough to do that, so they figured I’d better have a plan B, so real estate was the path that I took and my sister got in and got out and sometimes I think she was the smart one.
But I decided to stick with it and in 1983, I heard this guy, this guru back in the day come through town on how buy houses with no money down. So, I got hooked and started doing wholesaling. I don’t think that’s what we called it back in the day. I think flipping is what we called it. And I did that because I didn’t have any money. That was what really appealed to me and I’m sure the rest of your listeners can agree that you can get in with relatively little money or very little experience and I had none.
So, I stayed in the real estate investing end of it, my husband and I. Back when the short sale thing was all the rage, I went to another seminar and heard someone talk about investing with tax-free money and that really appealed to me. By this time, I did have money and I was paying taxes like a lot of us do and I thought, “I’m not getting any younger. I might want to figure out a way to build some retirement wealth,” because we don’t have a pension in this industry.
So, that was when I was introduced to both the HSA, which is the health savings account, and the Roth IRA and 401(k) with the Roth component.
Mike:Yeah.
Darlene:So, I know like the rest of us, we in this business, we kill and then we eat. It’s still eat what you kill. But one day, you’re going to wake up and you’re going to be retired and go, “Okay, now what?” So, that clock was ticking rather fast for both my husband, Joel, and myself and I said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to open up both an HSA and a Roth IRA.”
And the advantage of the Roth IRA is because it was not only tax-free wealth coming out, there’s a tax write off going in. Unlike the Roth, where you don’t get to write that off, it’s after tax money, the HSA is pre-tax. You do get a tax write-off. You can pay your expenses, which is a write off too, and then you get to reimburse yourself back for those expenses you’ve already paid. That’s sort of the trifecta.
Mike:Yeah. That’s awesome. Before we get into too much detail about HSAs, obviously one thing about them for sure—we’ll come back to this when we talk about them in a little bit—I think healthcare costs, I don’t think, I know they’re more expensive than ever. This stuff is even more important today back then when it was when you first started it when health costs, we probably always look at them as this is expensive, but probably nothing like today. This is a totally different world we live in now.
Well, I want to ask you a question before we start talking about specific accounts and how to use them. By no means, Darlene, am I trying to age you in any way. I feel the same way. Every once in a while I have someone on the show that is crushing it and they’re like in their early 20s. I think we all feel the same way. The single biggest regret I’ve ever heard real estate investors make is, “I wish I had started earlier.”
But with this information today—there are a lot of people listening to this show today that are ages of all types. But they say, “Hey, you should have started 20 years ago but the second best thing to do is start today.” It is what it is where you are. If you can just kind of go back in time, a time machine. What would you tell yourself when you started in the late ’70s about health savings accounts or self-directed accounts that you know if you had started so much earlier, you’d be in a totally different place right now. You’d be on a laptop on a beach somewhere talking to me right now instead of wherever you’re at.
Darlene:Absolutely. I would tell my 20-year old self do this yesterday.
Mike:Yeah.
Darlene:I was sharing this with a young gentleman in a mastermind that I was in prior to the one I’m in now. He said, “I don’t need to do anything right now. I’m 29.” I said, “Oh, young grasshopper . . .” I said, “You know what? I’m going to tell you . . .” his name is John. “John, I went to bed yesterday and I was 29. I woke up today and I was 56.” So, it goes by like that. I know when my parents used to say that it used to drive me crazy, but it was really true. If you start small now, you don’t have to throw it all in an HSA or a Roth, just a little, say, “I’m going to do two deals this year in my HSA and one in my Roth,” or however you want to mix that up.
There are calculators online that you can use that will show you how that grows exponentially. It’s the compound interest thing. When I show that to my students, they’re like, “Whoa,” it just starts building and building like a snowball. So, if you’re 18 and you’re out there, you can open one up. Actually, it doesn’t matter what age you are for a Roth. As long as you have earned income, you can open up a Roth. I know parents who have opened them up for their children.
Mike:That’s what I was about to say is I’ve been inspired by Mark Evans, who I think you probably know.
Darlene:Yes.
Mike:He’s doing stuff for his baby. His baby has earned some income because he’s got him on some advertising and things like that. I have a son who’s nine and I was just talking to my wife like, “What if we work with him, we get even a couple rentals in there when he’s nine?” Imagine when he’s 30 or 40. It will be incredible.
Darlene:Also too, add to that children. You can open up a CESA, it’s a Coverdell Education Fund.
Mike:Right.
Darlene:You can’t put a lot in. I think the max is $2,000 per year, but if you take that $2,000 and you keep doing small deals, fund a deal, do a promissory or earnest money deposit for an investor and get interest on that, if you only have $500, you can use that $500 to build interest. You don’t have to take it down with an axe every time. Do it with a baseball bat in the beginning, then start investing bigger and bigger. When that starts to grow, have a plan. Have a plan to go out and open it up, do two deals or one deal and partner with people. Financial friend is a friends with benefits. So, I think that’s going to be a powerful, powerful tool in your tool shed and you won’t wake up the next day 55 or 70.
Mike:Well, Darlene, let’s take a step back at a high level. For a minute or two, tell us how you define self-directed accounts, what that means. A lot of people have heard of self-directed IRAs. Why don’t we just distinguish between a traditional IRA or 401(k) plan from self-directed and why that makes sense for real estate investors?
Are you looking to change your life through real estate investing? If you’re interested in either getting started or taking your business to the next level, please check out FlipNerd’s private program at theinvestormachine.com. This is the most robust real estate investor coaching, networking and mastermind on the planet and designed for your success.
If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves, ready to take personal responsibility for your own success and ready to dive into a world class instructional coaching program that provides you step by step instruction to help you achieve financial freedom, then you should apply today. Spaces are limited and candidates are only considered after an application and interview process. Our 12-month investor program is unparalleled. Think you might be a fit? Learn more today at theinvestormachine.com.
Distinguish between a traditional IRA or 401(k) plan from self-directed and why that makes sense for real estate investors.
Darlene:Yeah. Great question. So, a traditional IRA or 401(k), a lot of people who have the 401(k)s, have it with their current employer. That employer chooses where those investments are going to be done and you get to write off going in. So, a traditional IRA, you put the money in and your company matches if they do. Then you get the write off on your income tax. You build wealth in that. But when you go to take that money out in your retirement, you’re going to be taxed at that rate.
So, lord knows that traditionally taxes have always gone up. I don’t know if they’ve ever really gone down. So, who knows what they’re going to be? So, any listener who is in their 30s right now, by the time you hit that wonderful age of 70, what do you think that tax rate is going to be? It’s not going to be lower. So, you’re going to be taxed at that amount that’s going to eat into a lot of that retirement wealth.
The Roth IRA is you’re not getting the write off putting the money in. So, let’s say you only put $5,000 in this year. You’re going to do that after tax. You’re not going to get the write off on your income taxes. But you’re going to build wealth with that over the years and now take a look at that same amount left in your Roth and let’s use the comparison. Let’s say you build $500,000 in your traditional. You’re going to pay the prevailing tax rate when you take that half a million out.
With the Roth IRA, when you take that half a million out, you’re not going to be taxed on that at all. This is a great place to get the rental, let that start accumulating wealth there.
Mike:Yeah. With rentals specifically, you’re not taxed on any profit from rental revenue. If you sell the property you’re not taxed because it was all post-tax dollars, right? You paid the tax upfront. That’s so powerful if you think about what you can accumulate. I know that maybe you can share your thoughts on this. Obviously one of the biggest benefits of using real estate in your retirement accounts is that you can borrow money, you can actually leverage your dollars into more dollars.
Your self-directed IRA can borrow money through a non-recourse loan but to kind of use leverage, just like we all do in real estate to buy properties, you want to share your thoughts on that? If you have your money sitting in E-Trade and you’re buying an S&P 500 index fund, there’s no leverage, right?
Darlene:No. Not really. That is one thing that I have not done. I have not borrowed money. I know that it’s powerful. You’re going to be taxed a little bit different because you will be taxed on the amount of that loan. So, if you’re purchasing a property for $100,000 and you’re borrowing $20,000 of that, when you go to sell that property, on the $20,000 that you borrow, that part won’t be tax-free. You are going to pay taxes on that. It’s still better than borrowing 100% of it by yourself because you’re going to be taxed heavier, I guess is the point I was trying to make.
Mike:Awesome. I think most people probably understand IRA accounts, that you’re using it to save money for your retirement. We can talk some more about that. I also want to talk about health savings accounts. A lot of people don’t really understand. I think people make the connection, “I can use it to pay for my healthcare,” or any major expenses that you might have, but there’s a lot more to it than just that you can put some money in and use it as an account to pay for your expenses. There are a lot more financial benefits to these accounts, right?
Darlene:Oh, absolutely. They’re really one of my favorite tools, the HSA over the Roth IRA. The Roth IRA, you do have to wait until your retirement in order to take that money out. With the HSA, you can take that money out now tax-free as long as you’re reimbursing yourself for qualified medical expenses. And I’ll explain.
So, when you open up an HSA, which is the health savings account, there are a few things you have to have. You have to have a high deductible health care plan. A lot of us do if we’re not employed. We have high deductible. My deductible is $5,000 a year. That does qualify.
So, I put in the maximum amount of the allowable contribution to the HSA and then over the year, I don’t use that money to pay for medical expenses. I pay for my medical expenses outside of that and I would recommend having a separate debit card or even a separate bank account for that or if you’re really, really good at keeping records, put it on a spreadsheet, save your receipts.
So, say for instance four years from now, you’re 35 years old, four years from now you want to take about $10,000 out tax-free. All you need to do is direct your custodian to write a check for the qualified medical expenses. There are a gazillion qualified medical expenses. It’s not just prescription pills and eyeglasses and so forth.
Mike:For sure.
Darlene:There is a plethora of them, travel, all kinds of things. So, you can really pay $10,000 of your medical expenses very easy. You’re just going to write yourself a check, as long as your accounting is good—if you’re ever audited, the IRS is going to want to see you just took out a disbursement from your custodian from your HSA, do you have those qualified medical expense reimbursements to show for that? So, record keeping is key when you’re doing that.
Mike:Yeah. I should have probably noted—I’m thinking of my wife who sits at the other end of our office here. She’s our resident attorney, our resident CFO, our CPA, all those things. But anyway, I should say that neither Darlene or I are attorneys. So, you should seek professional advice here. We’re just kind of sharing our experiences or thoughts. That’s a verbal asterisk here.
So, I know people, some people that you know as well, Darlene, this is probably something that you do, they’re anticipating a lot of us have a lot of—Americans, right? We have massive expenses near the end of our life. Healthcare just skyrockets, right? I have some friends that have over time accumulated some rentals in their health savings accounts and they use leverage. They use non-recourse loans to fund them and they throw off a lot of cash, so they maybe for their family might throw off $10,000 or $20,000 a year to cover all their costs and then some.
So, they’re building up an account that when they get later in life and they need more help. They need to move into assisted living. There are other things that that can cover. I’m not sure if I’m 100% accurate on everything you can cover with a health savings account, but there are a lot more than, like you said, just medications and checkups and stuff like that. It could be major expenses that we’re all probably going to have at some point. Who doesn’t want to kind of enter the later years of your life with confidence that you’re not going to be this massive burden on your family or on tax payers or on anybody else, right?
Darlene:We hear that a lot too. We do pre-foreclosure work. I would say the bulk—and I don’t know the actual percentage—the bulk of our foreclosures are due to people not having enough medical insurance or even if they do have insurance, they had a catastrophic event that the insurance no longer covers or they’re at end of life and they need to go in an assisted facility.
Your insurance is going to cover bare bones minimum. You’re going to wind up in some not so happy place and have the confidence and the peace knowing that when you get to that point, that you can just throw up a check and go into what’s called [inaudible 00:20:54], which is one of the more affluent end of life care facilities and the treatment is a little more stellar than your ghetto nursing home, not to be a fear monger or anything, but the reality of that is becoming more real every day, like you said.
Mike:Yeah.
Darlene:Healthcare is crazy. Medical, you cannot use your HSA, by the way, to pay for medical insurance premiums. So, when we think of clearance on that, if you have medical insurance a priority, I cannot make the premium payment with the HSA unless I’m taking it as a disbursement and want to do that. So, I want the listeners to know there is that caveat.
Mike:Right. But if you have a high deductible plan—kind of knock on wood, but my wife and I and my son Jake who’s 9 now, he goes to the doctor a couple of times a year, we haven’t had a lot of expenses. But last year I was in a paintball accident that we won’t go into detail on, but I like twisted my knee and I ended up getting an MRI. When I was in corporate America, I just had health insurance and it wasn’t a big deal. That was ten years ago. But now, literally, I went to get an MRI and it was like $3,500 or something and I just paid it right out of pocket because my deductible was $6,000 or something. But stuff like that, you could expense against your HSA, correct?
Darlene:True. If you need to pay for your medical expenses out of your HSA, there’s no shame in that either. My husband had rotator cuff surgery or shoulder surgery and it was super expensive. Our healthcare, you know $5,000 and we’re very healthy, so we have never expensed that down. So, part of that shoulder surgery I paid for out of the HSA. It just made sense for me to do that at that time.
Mike:Yeah.
Darlene:Now, we’ve earmarked that money, but if something were to happen where there would be a catastrophic event, then yeah, we have confidence now that we can stroke that check and really be at peace with that.
Mike:Maybe share your experience or your knowledge on HSAs in the regard that unlike an IRA, individual retirement account, all these other vehicles are at the individual level. So, maybe you and your spouse both contribute to it and maybe you at the end of the day, your money is all yours. It depends on your arrangement with your spouse, I guess.
Darlene:All mine.
Mike:But an HSA is at the family level, right? You have this account. If I have an account, I can pay for things for my wife, I can pay for things for me, my children, things like that. Maybe explain those benefits that a lot of people might not understand.
Darlene:Sure. So, Joel and I, we have no children. So, we have our HSA together. It’s a family plan. However your plan is written, it makes sense, if you’re husband and wife, to have a family plan. Some people have individual plans. The deductibles are a little bit different that way. I’m going to just talk about family plan right now.
You put your contribution to your HSA for the family and for the medical expenses, like you said, you had the MRI, Joel had the surgery. We just write the check out of that, a portion of that, a portion we wrote out of our own bank account. So, it’s the family plans. If you have your son, your wife, you write checks, you keep really good records and then when it comes time to reimburse, you would just reimburse yourself.
Mike:Yeah. I think that’s powerful because in my experience, I’ve got to keep knocking on wood here because I don’t want anybody in my family to get sick or anybody’s family to get sick, but the odds of you having a significant expense in your healthcare are generally minimal, but the odds of somebody in your family having an issue is a much bigger exposure.
You kind of have some—I don’t know how I’m trying to say this here, but when you have more people in your family, obviously the chances of somebody getting sick or somebody having a major medical expense in any one year is greater than any one person. So, you can kind of cast that wide net over your whole family, I guess.
Darlene:Yeah. Absolutely. There’s power in numbers, right? That can be good or bad. As we get older, Joel is in his 60s, I’m in my late 50s—as we get older, more things start to break down. So, I wish [inaudible 00:25:41] would say, “Get that thing going now.” We started that, I’m going to say, ten years ago.
So, although we’re really diligent because I’m passionate, as you probably can tell, about self-directed investing, we’ve really taken the time to set out a plan every year to build that up. Now if there were any event, I’m confident that one of us would still have power to replenish that, but at the same time, we would be able to write a check out of that and not feel like we are going to be strapped for cash.
Mike:Yeah. Darlene, let’s maybe talk for a second about . . . people that are listening to this, sometimes they see the power in this and it sounds overwhelming. So, let’s talk about how to just start small. I think a lot of people say, “I’m not investing in real estate yet.” You don’t have to invest in real estate to open up a health savings account, by the way, but the problem is if you’re just getting started in real estate or you’re already doing some deals, you have to kind of get the process started. So, maybe talk a little bit about kind of your advice to people on how to smart small just to kind of get going.
Darlene:Sure. That’s great. I also want to add to that not only starting small. One of my students said, “I already have an HSA. My insurance company has it with Prudential, but I can’t buy real estate or do notes or do anything with real estate. It’s invested by the company.” So, if you have that HSA, you might want to ask company if you can go ahead and self-direct it. That’s one of the side notes.
For those of you who do not have an HSA at all but have a high deductible healthcare plan, check to make sure—I believe it’s $2,500 or more—you’re going to want to get ahold of a custodian to open up an HSA. You don’t call your insurance company. So, any of the custodians out there, there’s Equity Trust and Kingdom Trust and specialized IRA services. There are a zillion of them. Go ahead and Google it. If I can recommend anyone, I believe I’m with [inaudible 00:28:03].
Mike:I’m always hesitant to like plug somebody because a lot of these guys are all of our friends, but just do a search on FlipNerd in the search bar up above because we’ve had pretty much every major company or representatives on the show at one point or another. Just do a search for “self-directed IRA” and you’ll find a whole bunch of folks that we think are qualified. Sorry, Darlene, go ahead.
Darlene:No, definitely. So, what you need to do is action item number one is do the search. So, everybody write this down because you know how it is, we say, “Oh yeah, I’m going to go ahead and do that.” But now it’s going to be a contest today. The first ten people, they’re going to get a free pair of glasses from FlipNerd.
Mike:Yeah. We want our nerds to retire rich and have plenty of money set aside for healthcare expenses.
Darlene:So, find a custodian. There are fees. Fees vary from custodian to custodian. You’re going to have that. There are some cool things we didn’t get to on avoiding to pay some of those fees. But find that custodian and give them a call. Even if you don’t have $5,000, $6,000 to put in an HSA, you can only scrap together $100, take action anyway, just open it up with a minimum amount that you can open it up with that custodian.
So, now you get all of the paperwork from the custodian and review all the paperwork now. You don’t want to find a deal and then scramble around to then review the paperwork and now days are ticking and you’re calling your custodian going, “What does this mean?” Do all of that now. Download all of their—if they have them online, download paperwork, get familiar with the language that they have and then it’s really simple, start doing deals.
I really want you guys to reach out to me to say that you did that. I know there are tons of people listening to this now and it would be really exciting for you to reach out to me or Mike or however you want to set that up to say, “Yeah, I actually set that up.” So, say you have $1,000 in there. Are you going to buy a house for $1,000? Probably not, unless you’re in Detroit.
If all you have is $1,000 but you know someone else has $50 or someone else has a little bit of money, buy a house together or you could actually fund part of that deal and it would look like this. Somebody’s going to go ahead and purchase a property and they’re going to allow you to put down the earnest money deposit of $1,000. So, what you’re going to do is a promissory note for that $1,000 and you’re going to charge them interest. You’re probably not going to get 50% of a deal, but you never know if you’re a really good negotiator.
So, now you’re going to get interest on that. Now that interest and your principal goes back into your HSA or your custodian. Now let’s say you have $1,100 in there. Keep doing deals throughout the course of a year. What I did, the very first thing I did is I went ahead and put an option on a property. Now, here in Michigan, your option can be $100, actually even $10. But I went ahead and optioned a property for $100 and when I say “I”, I mean my Roth or my HSA, and then I turned around and found somebody to wholesale that deal to and I got $10,000. So, I wholesaled that deal for $10,000 and it was instant [inaudible 00:31:55] put that money right back into my HSA.
At that time, I was building it up, found a house for $12,000. I kid you not. They actually have them here in Michigan. I purchased that property for $12,000. That’s a rental. I still have it to this day and I get $995 a month for rent and I’ve had it probably since 2010. So, there are some really cool ways to make that back straight away where you don’t have to just make interest. But mix up your portfolio a little bit.
Mike:Yeah. Again, I’m not providing legal advice here, financial guidance. But check with your custodian you work with, but I know somebody that has some rentals in their HSA and they had it structured where they were 50-50 partners with somebody else’s health savings account. I don’t know exactly how that gets set up. But their arrangement was the partner, the other person, put the money in to do the deal and they found the deal.
They were able to effectively have half the rent coming in that they were allocated . . . their account gets access to that and they probably initially put down the down payment or deposit to get it started. They had some beneficial interest, certainly. But they kind of did more of the work to get it going and the other person was looking to be totally passive. “If you find a deal, yeah, we’ll be partners on it.”
That happens all the time outside of our health savings accounts and retirement accounts. Those types of things can happen inside. Even if you start with something small, like you said, there are some ways to structure deals where you’re doing more of the leg work to get the deal done and you’re benefitting from that in a bigger way. I guess it’s effectively kind of sweat equity inside your account.
Darlene:Why not? It happens in the normal taxable world. Really get creative and think. Now, there are things you cannot do and there’s a litany of rules that there probably is not enough time to go through all of those rules here. But you cannot combine your HSA or your Roth with your own personal money. That’s a prohibitive transaction in self dealing.
There are certain people you cannot invest with, family members, not your mom, not your dad. You can’t buy their house, you can’t buy a property and a weekend home and stay there every weekend. That’s not going to fly. It has to be an investment that’s the key. When you talk to your custodian, and you can even Google it too to find out who are those prohibited, disqualified parties to yourself and what is a prohibitive transaction. Really get familiar with the rules, but not to the point where it scares you and it creates [inaudible 00:34:46] is not going to take action. If you do that, then you’re going to wake up old and broke.
Mike:Yeah. Awesome. Well, Darlene, I think we’re about out of time here. Can you maybe share if folks want to learn more about you or they want to get in touch with you, I know you don’t really have anything for sale, you don’t have a website yourself, I don’t believe. Maybe we need to set you up a website.
Darlene:I probably do. I do have [inaudible 00:35:10] but it’s by word of mouth, but if you need to get ahold of me, you can find me on Facebook. It’s under Darlene Fitzgerald Group. Just go ahead and message me or friend me, ask questions. I’ll be more than happy to take some time to walk you through the process.
Mike:That’s awesome. One thing I would say is you mentioned this phrase, “financial friends.” I know there are networks and stuff out there for this once you have self-directed retirement accounts. So, in my experience, a lot of custodians, they’re not going to give you big advice because they try to shy away from that because they don’t want the liability of, “You said I could do this.”
But there’s a whole network, a whole world of people that are financial friends that do deals together. They find ways to structure deals. I get the most out of learning about what you can do by talking to people like you and other friends that are active and investing their self-directed accounts just saying, “Here’s my situation. How can I do this?” What you find is there’s this world of people that are finding creative solutions to build wealth, right? So, it’s a powerful community or communities once you kind of crack into them and you find them.
Darlene:Absolutely. You and I are in the same mastermind and there is that power that when you first do a deal with somebody, you want to vet them. You want to make sure that it’s a solid deal. You have a networking aspect of financial friends in a mastermind where there is that same level of mutual respect and you know them because you’ve seen them and networked with them.
Get involved with clubs like that, your local REIA, if you have a really good REIA, plug yourself in, make sure that the person who’s running that REIA is very familiar with the ins and outs. There are some talented, talented individuals. I know most cities have really good REIAs. Even meetups, go online and find some self-directed meetups. Always consult with your custodian before you do deals. Even if you think you know how to do it, I’ve seen a lot of people have their IRAs blown up or scrutinized heavily due to doing a deal. It’s not ready, shoot, aim when you’re dealing with a self-directed ready, aim player.
Mike:Yeah. Awesome. Everybody listening, I want to add a link to Darlene’s Facebook page down below the video here on the show page and definitely I appreciate you, Darlene, for being willing to ask questions. And of course any of the major custodians love to answer questions and they have events all over the place and a lot of the folks that we know are travelling to a lot of real estate investor clubs, speaking and trying to share their message because there are a lot of people doing it, but it’s still probably single digits that really understand this space relative to those that are pumping it into a Fidelity or an E-Trade or somewhere else without many of the benefits we talked about today. Appreciate you being with us, Darlene.
Darlene:My pleasure.
Mike:Yeah. Everybody that’s listening, actually this is show number 352. We appreciate you. We actually have kind of a mantra on FlipNerd. Outside of my office here, nobody that actually listens to our show, most people have not seen my office, but our entire goal is to help real estate investors build wealth to change their lives, change the lives of the families and communities and things like that.
This stuff is really important. If you enjoyed today’s show, share it with somebody that you love because there’s good information in here. This is what real estate investing is all about. It’s about building up a way to be financially free and independent from any of the things that might be bogging you down right now.
Darlene:Excellent.
Mike:Everybody, thanks for joining us today. We’ll see you on another episode real soon. Have a great day.
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the FlipNerd.com Investing Show. If you’re not yet an elite member of FlipNerd, you’re missing out. We have tons of great training including a new detailed master class published each month and live training webinars with experts twice a month. Plus you’ll get access to all of our archives where we already have a growing library of master classes and other training videos.
Elite members also get membership in our incredible online mastermind group, where many of the top real estate investors from across the country, including many of the hundreds of guests I’ve had on the show in the past, are already members. Whether you’re brand new, looking to get started or a veteran, you simply must join today. I promise you won’t be disappointed. To learn more or join today, please visit flipnerd.com/lab. That’s flipnerd.com/lab. See you on the next show.

 

Copy link
Powered by Social Snap