Real Self-Directed IRA Deals (Show and Tell with Mat and Mark)

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In this episode, Mat Sorensen and Mark J. Kohler record live from the Self-Directed IRA Summit and take a “show and tell” approach to real investments from their own self-directed retirement accounts.

They highlight a short-term real estate lending deal and discuss how experienced investors evaluate opportunities, structure transactions, and stay disciplined when deploying retirement capital.

The episode also touches on sourcing deals, maintaining investment standards, and the flexibility self-directed IRAs offer for investing in real estate and alternative assets.

This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or investment advice. Investors should consult with their own advisors before making any investment decisions.

For questions or to learn more about this episode's topic, book a call with an IRA specialist here: https://directedira.com/appointment/

Other:

Mat Sorensen: https://matsorensen.com

Mark J. Kohler: https://markjkohler.com/ 

KKOS: https://kkoslawyers.com

Main Street Business https://mainstreetbusiness.com

Transcript

Live From The SDIRA Summit

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Welcome everyone to the Directed IRA podcast. This is live in studio from the Self-Directed IRA Summit. I'm joined by the great and powerful, the not so tall Mark J.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Kohler. I've lost an inch here. Matt gives me the little boys' chair. You know, like he invited me over for Thanksgiving, and I was sitting with all the kids on the little kid table.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

I thought they would like you. It was it was a it worked. We had extra mac and cheese over there.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Yeah, it was good. Yeah, I I know. I loved it. I get all the brown meat. It was just awesome. You know, dark meat. Well, hey, I am so excited about today because this directed IRA summit has been a huge hit. Great turnout, lots of fun. The team has been amazing. And we're gonna share some of our favorite investments in our self-directed accounts. Yeah. And notice how I said accounts. Ooh. It's because it's you know, plural. It could be anything, plural. You know, well, I mean, all the different types of accounts. It's not just your IRA. I like it.

A Real IRA Loan Deal

SPEAKER_02 1:02

All right. Okay. Now, as we've gone through the day, if you've been on here for the self-directed IRA Summit, thank you so much for being here. If you missed this, by the way, and you're catching this on the podcast, get to SDIRA Summit.com. You can buy the recordings there. If you're a client at directed IRA, you'll get access to them. And if you're not a client, you can be one. Open up an account already. So um, let's start doing some show and tell. What we're gonna talk about now is just some deals we've done with our own self-directed IRAs. We've already laid the framework already through the whole day here. Mark and I have talked about these over the years, but should I go first? Yeah. You want to just get into it?

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah, yeah. Let's do it. You go first. Okay, all right. I've got a video.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

So I said we're gonna show a video. Now, I'm gonna I'm gonna set this up so everybody knows. Okay. Now who's that guy? You're gonna make this this is beard mat. I had a beard era for a short time.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

That's you?

unknown 1:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

It's not good. Okay, this is not a flattering video of you, okay? Apparently. But okay, all right. All right, good. Obviously, okay. But okay, I went to Providence, Rhode Island. Okay. We just heard from John Shakarchi. Many of you have seen him at our events. He's on our board. I've invested a lot with my own IRA with John. And this is a deal he and I did together. Now I'm at the property that I lent money on, talking to the investor I lent money to. Her name is Natalie. So let's roll the clip here. Okay, so this is Natalie. She's the real estate investor I lent my money to out of my retirement account. Tell us a little about yourself. Like, what do you do besides real estate?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Well, I've been a hairdresser for about 16 years, business owner. I have a general contractor company, and I flip houses now.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Tell me about this deal. Like, what did you like about this deal for this house?

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Well, first of all, the price. The price in the market that we have nowadays, it was great. It was a steal. It's valued over double what I paid for it. Okay. So I paid like$216 for it. It's worth$530,000 about. I have over$200,000 in equity.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

One of the unique things about this house is the lot.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

The extra lot adds value to the house because it's a buildable duplex lot, which is worth about$150 in today's value, um market value price.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Okay, so we're gonna pause here. All right. So now you heard that Natalie, she is a hairdresser, slash real estate investor, slash general contractor. Yeah, I'd never seen her before. This is fun. Yeah. So this is cool. We actually went out, we were there. You know, we were shot at it. Yeah, give a little shout out to Aaron Haldeman on the camera there.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Great video work, whoever did that.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Yeah, it was great. And so, um, all right, so that was the deal. All right, she's a real estate investor in the area, and she found that property. Now, as she talked about that, this is a buildable duplex lot, which added a lot of value, down 150 grand of equity to the property in and of itself. Now, no bank would lend on that property because it was in such a disrepair, but she liked the challenge, she wanted the project. All right, so so I lent money, 100 grand for my account. John lent 100 grand, and we were both on one note. All right, so it was one note and one mortgage, my IRA had 50%, his IRA, John's IRA had 50%, and we both got 12% interest in two points. Okay, so I got$2,000 immediately, and then I get 12% interest over the term and loan. Now we had a six-month loan on that. She paid us off in about four to five. She paid us off early, actually, because she refied us out. She got a traditional mortgage from a traditional lender and ended up refining us out. So now I got another clip on this one here that I'm gonna show. There's this little second little clip here where John talked about why we decided to lend on this deal. Okay, so so we got another clip here towards the end that gives a quick little summary on this, and we'll talk through it and we'll go to Mark's example. Okay, all right. This is so good. All right, you got clip two? Okay, let's go to clip two. All right, Natalie, what's next for you?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Guys, the limit, maybe with you guys on my team, we're gonna go forward and forward. Can't stop the momentum.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Yeah, because when you pay us off, we want to lend on the next deal.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Exactly. Right. Okay. I'm already looking for the next deal. All right, I'm in.

SPEAKER_04 5:03

We'll do it. And then do the same thing. We have three things person, property, and exit strategy. We already like Natalie. We know she's a winner. We'll analyze her next property. That's easy. And then we'll want to make sure that she can get out, and we'll get her pre-qualified with the lender. So it'll be short-term bridge line. Perfect. Looking forward to it. That's how you do it.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

I just want to say John looks great. Right. I know. I mean, he's wearing the tie and everything.

Finding Borrowers And Holding Standards

SPEAKER_02 5:24

He really played that lawyer role. And and what about me? You look good. Did you loan on her again? Or did you let her down and we have not loaned on her deals because I wasn't fast enough. Now, John has and some other investors have done other deals, but sometimes my money's out and she's got the next deal. So I haven't, the timing just hasn't worked. Where she's got a deal, usually they want it functional. And your cash is three weeks, and I'm out on another deal. So um, but Natalie's awesome and um successful deal there. And what I'll say too is a lot of people are like, Well, Matt, I don't know people to lend money to. Did you listen to what Ashley Cash said? She said she went to a meetup. She went online and she said, I typed in three words in meetup real estate investing. And I went and showed up at events. Okay. I met people, I talked to people. We just talked about how you kind of have to be a driver if willing to talk to people. Let people know if you want to lend on properties. Maybe you're looking to flip properties, whatever you might, your strategy might be. You're looking for buy and hold. Let people know what you're looking for. Let them know you have money in an IRA. You will attract deals and opportunity when you do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Yeah. You'll be like a fly and whatever. I mean, like whatever those little metaphors are.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

You're the honey.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yeah. Real honey? The beat, the bees. Yeah, bees come to the honey to something. Anyway, so I will say this too. Um, a couple other tips on that. Um be careful jumping on the first deal that comes your way. You will be swamped, swarmed, whatever. That's a point I was trying to make. When you start to say, hey, I'm ready to loan on real estate deals, you will be tempted on occasion, frankly, on a regular basis, to uh let down your standards. You're like if you say, I'm 12 and 2, I need a first trusted, I gotta have an appraisal, I need this, I need this. You stick to those religiously because there's gonna be someone that comes along, typically a brother-in-law, that's gonna say, Oh, yeah, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't have an appraisal, or will you do 12 and one, or will you do whatever? Make someone else the bad guy. Say, I've got a partner, I've got a whatever, make an imaginary friend, whatever it is, but say, no, I stick to these seven things. I gotta have all seven clean and pretty before I do this. Another side note is Patty, my wife, she's in a real estate investment club. I think her is that they're all over the place. It's her, it's called Hers Real Estate. Anyway, but there's it's women-only, a real estate club. And they all get together, they do hikes and walks and talks, and they go do their little workshops and all this. And um there's a couple ladies in there that lend, and a couple of ladies in there that borrow and blah, blah, blah. And Patty's dropped a hint, hey, I'll I'll lend on a deal here and there. And we've gotten a couple ladies that are like, Hey, will you do this? But they're like, But we, you know, 12, that's a little high. Can you do 10 and whatever? No, here's our standard. So stick to your guns, people, because that's when mistakes happen.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

Yeah. Yeah. So um, so get out there, find the deals that you want to do. This is just an example of a deal. I've showed the uh some of the other stuff I've done earlier. I've talked about the private companies I've invested in, the buy and hold rental properties. Um, but I just want to show an actual tangible deal. The property I lent on, the person I lent the money to. This is why I like self-directing. I actually love it. I like that I met Natalie and that that she got a hundred grand of my money that she made money on, I made money on, rather than that hundred grand sitting in the stock market. Rather than getting a CD. That's just not exciting to me. And um, but being involved with that, being attached to my money, knowing I'm part of whether it's successful or not, that's what gets me excited. And I think that's what attracts people to self-directing. So you can enjoy the actual process instead of just like the stress of the stock market and you're have zero control.

Using An HSA To Buy Cattle

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Well, speaking of enjoying what you invest in, there you go. There we go. Thanks for that transition. All right, we got a little video here. Now I will stepped on that. Yeah. Well, on this note, um I uh for those of you that are catching the podcast and were not here at the uh directed IRA summit, please get over to the website, watch the recording, tons of information today. Well, in that, I talked about the health savings account and how my health savings account invested in a rental property out in Chicago, and I showed pictures of it. I actually showed the Repsy, the real estate purchase contract, and I've actually this week been in touch with Chris Albin and he's found a buyer for it. So I've held this rental property for uh 12 years. No, eight years. Anyway, um, but uh I be I'll be selling it and using the money for, I think, some ranching, some cattle, some land out in Utah. So let's roll this next video and I'll show you uh what we're doing here. So Patty and I were so excited to start Kohler Brick Cattle Company in Utah, in what's known as Wasatch County. Here's some of our cows fattening up on grain. This is our rancher Greg. You'll maybe see him here in a moment. Here's our granddaughter and Patty and I at Roundup. So this is uh some real cowboys pushing the cows for Roundup. What we did is we uh have these 20 cows. We lost one calf last year, but those 10 moms got pregnant again. If you guys don't know how birds and the bees work. So the 20 cows, 10 moms and 10 calves, went through the roundup this last year. This is the roundup. I actually got to help be there. Again, I can't work on the ranch or manage the cows because that would be prohibited. But we uh moved the cows down to uh livestock area that's my little granddaughter helping out, and these are our cows in the LLC. We invested in 10 moms, 10 calves for a total of 20, and then we'll sell three of those calves this year, and the 10 moms got pregnant, so we're building the herd, and it has been an incredible experience growing that herd inside the cattle company and creating an incredible rate of return, and it's been something we are passionate about and super fun. So I hope you guys can see this little operation grow in the future as we share it here at some of our events.

unknown 11:54

Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Okay, pause it there. So that oh, we have to go back to the there's a couple scenes here that were awesome. That's me on the dark horse in the middle. Nice trying to and uh back when we were pushing the cows around. For those who watch Yellowstone, those cutting horses where they kind of push the cows around. Yeah, super cool. Uh, those are very expensive horses, four sixes horses. But uh, no, it was fun. Those cowboys, we hired them to help push the cows, and they're like, Well, you can ride along, just stay out of the way. I'm like, all right. So uh anyway, so thanks for showing that, Tristan. But um I think there's a I like Matt's last point of doing something you're passionate about and fun and getting involved with your that's why I was just going there because it makes money. So I've got uh it projected out for the return on the investment with these cows. I think we're gonna average over three years about 24%, 25% ROI, because you don't make money in the first year when you buy the cows, and then it's the next year when the the cows have another round of babies, then you start selling or calves, and I've got to call them the right terms, and my rancer is always working out for that. But then you get more calves and then you sell part of them, and it's called a cow calf operation. Again, I'll reference Yellowstone. In the last season, spoiler alert, when Casey starts to buy his own herd, he said, Yeah, I'm buying 300 pairs. That's 300 moms with calves next to them. Well, the first year you're just trying to keep them alive and fed, and then the next year, when those moms have calves again, that's when you start to make money. So, anyway, it's been a lot of fun, and we've uh are gonna we've made our contributions to our HSA this year. I'm gonna sell that rental property I referred to earlier to help um create more cash available for the account. And uh because you did those with the you did these with your HSA. Yeah, yeah. So sorry if I missed that part. The health savings account, Patty's HSA and my HSA partnered in that LLC.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Multi-member IR multi multimember HSA LLC for you guys. We talked about that earlier today in the in the summit.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yep. And I'll be a little more specific briefly. Just we uh back last year, the cow cattle prices have gone up dramatically. A pair right now is costing us about$4,500. Last year they were$3,500. So we bought 10 pairs for about$35,000. So Patty and I had contributed to our HSAs for about three or four years. So between us, we had about$40,000,$45,000 combined in our health savings accounts because we didn't reimburse ourselves for medical. We want to let that money ride. And so we took the 45,000, 40,000, started the LLC, bought 35,000 worth of those 10 pairs. Now we have a rancher down the road. He's like, see, a lot if you if you're into this, you're gonna meet other ranchers. And they're like, I already got a herd of 100 cows. You're gonna throw your 10 cows in with mine. All right, I'll charge you 500 bucks a month. Just because they just eat grass, you know, and hey, and they're not that hard. So he's like, throw them in my herd, you know. And I'm like, all right. And so we pay him to manage them. And and and so by the time you do the math, um, this year right now, those calves that we got last year, I can sell them for four grand each. So I just made if I sold them all, I'd have 40 grand on a$35,000 investment. But we're gonna build the herd. You gotta build the herd. So when you go to the the diner in the morning on Saturdays, you know, how big's your herd? Yeah, you gotta get it.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

You need to get some street cred on Main Street and uh in Highway 40.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

That's right. I don't want to be a all hat, no cows. I gotta I gotta have some cows.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

That's what I used to I used to call Mark, you know, he's all hat, no cattle. And now I can't say that anymore.

Creative Alt Investments And Ticket Flips

SPEAKER_01 15:41

No, no. So when I throw it on biscuits and gravy, I'm I'm serious. Yeah, he's got the hat and the cattle to prove it. So exciting. But we've had all sorts of people do fun things. We've talked about it before. We've got a soccer. Yeah, we have a yeah, tell me about that.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

Professional Mexican soccer team owns like 5% of it. Um, we've had clients, IRAs invest in racehorses that have been at the Kentucky Derby. We've had clients, IRAs invest in public, sorry, private companies that have gone public. Um, so many just interesting things that are cool. And I honestly kind of think like the individual loan or that rental property in Indianapolis is cool too.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

You know, I'm like, there's somebody who lived in there that was the tenant that was paying me. There was a real estate agent, a friend of mine that worked on that deal with me. Like it, it's kind of like it's just feeling connected to it and involved in it. And I know it can take some work, but if you like that stuff and you're entrepreneurial and you've you've that like speaks to you, I mean, you're the person that should be self-directing your IRA. And I'll even say this if it doesn't, you're like, I want something passive. Well, private lending is more passive. You can invest in a private fund or a syndication of other people doing those things too.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Okay, I've got a good one here too. Yes. So I had a client, he literally, I don't know, I almost want to say he made his living, but it was more of a side gig, but he did really well. He would buy and sell concert tickets. So um, I've got a client too buying and selling water rights, but concert tickets is a big one. He'd go on the day concerts are released, he'd pick up tickets as quickly as he could, then wait about a week before the concert, go on StubHub and Ticketmaster and resell them and double or triple his money many times. So I I I then I taught him about self-directing, and he started buying some tickets in an LLC, and he was doing that deal. But I just want to let you know, I bought tickets for this the day they came out, they sold out in two hours. Metallica at the sphere in Vegas. They're going, they're coming in October. So I thought I'm gonna buy two tickets for me and Patty. I bought them for 900 bucks. I went back on an hour later. They were already selling for 1300. So I was like, I'm gonna buy two more. So I bought you two tickets. Now, if you don't want them, Aaron will take them. Yeah, but I mean, you still be a matter of going. What do you want? You got Metallica tickets too? You got them?

unknown 17:59

We're going with you.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

You're going with me. Oh, okay. I was like, what are you going to Wizard of Oz next month? You said two. We're going.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

One, two. I liked it. You were trying to create a market there and a little auction.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

I was trying to flip them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

You said you bought one.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Well, actually, what we do, we bought two tickets for the second weekend in October and two more for the third weekend because we're like, I don't know if we're traveling. So I've got two and two. So I might have to send you guys separately, you know, I guess. I don't know. But it's awesome. Yeah, we saw uh you two there, people. Incredible. So, but you can buy and sell concert tickets in your Roth IRA.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

We've seen people do that.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

And I had a client buy two seats when the Raiders Stadium was announced in Vegas. He bought two seats, season ticket, season ticket patholder, whatever seats with his Roth IRA. And then he resold the next season all the seats uh to the tickets that came for the 10 games or 15 games, whatever it was, and all that money went back into his Roth IRA LLC. So he did it with uh it was now those can have UBIT.

Wrap Up CTA And Disclaimers

SPEAKER_02 19:03

So you use the blocker, so that's like uh, but these are just creative things, and like if the returns there, and you're only paying that if you're making money, so um, and that that can totally make sense. So there's lots of creative things that you can do. Um, and that's what the self-directed IRN taps. And we just want to make sure today you know and you feel empowered that you don't have to just buy a stock bond or mutual fund. We've been brainwashed that, and that's fine. Those are could be good things. I'm not saying don't invest in that. I'm just saying that's not all you have to do. All these other assets that are out there in the world that are investments that you can invest in, that people have grown and build wealth on, you can use your own retirement account, these tax advantage accounts, to grow and build wealth. So we hope today was helpful in illustrating that. Remember, this is recorded. So you can get to SDRA Summit.com to get the recordings if you're listening to the podcast and you didn't catch this live. Um, and uh thank you, Mark, for speaking three times today. Three slots today.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Well, you know, I'm I'm a team player here. I love direct an IRA, sir uh, you know, serve on the board and just so excited about what you and the team have accomplished on a day-to-day basis. It's just incredible. And thanks to all of you that regularly listen to this podcast. Please share it. Give us uh five stars, two thumbs up, you know, a yada yada, a little hip hip array, whatever. And uh we'll see you next week. Every week, we have an episode on the Directed IRA podcast trying to help you build your American dream. And thank you everyone for listening. A quick disclaimer and reminder: this presentation does not constitute an attorney or CPA client relationship, and it is always in your best interest to consult competent legal and tax professionals when conducting your own personal transactions.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

We also want to make sure you know this is not investment advice or financial advice. We're just trying to give you education, ideas, and strategies you can take to your professionals or conduct your own research on. We'll see you next time.