For the purposes of this article, I’m going to assume you know a little bit about real estate, but next to nothing about IRAs. Let’s assume you have a job, and you have a retirement account through your job, called a 401K retirement account. If you’re like most employees, you contribute to your 401K out of each paycheck, and the money you contribute (up to certain government mandated maximums) is tax deferred. Your employer may or may not match a portion of your contributions. Simple enough.

Also called an Individual Retirement Account – because an individual can open an IRA unrelated to their employment situation – the IRA is an account you can contribute directly to yourself. You can open an IRA even if you also have a 401K at your workplace, and deposit up to an annual total specified by the IRS.

The possibility also exists to “roll-over” your 401K funds into an IRA… roll-over is the term used for transferring funds between these types of retirement accounts, and the IRS has specific rules which must be followed to handle these transfers or roll-overs. Keep in mind, I’m just giving you the basics here.

The problem is, neither the IRA or the 401K as they commonly exist can be used for investing in income property. Only the custodian of the account (normally a bank or financial institution) can designate what investments are purchased with these funds, leaving you on the outside looking in, with almost no control over where your own money is invested. About all you can do is state what percentages of your money you want to go into which funds the account is invested in. Not nearly good enough for my money.

There is a specific type of IRA however, called a self-directed IRA, which allows you to designate exactly which investments your IRA moneys are invested in. If you consider yourself to be an expert in residential income property, and you know you can generate a certain rate of return consistently, wouldn’t it be a good idea to be able to invest those tax deferred dollars in your 401K or IRA in something you know something about, rather than relying on some faceless fund manager in an office in some distant city? Of course it would!

It’s simple and easy to open your very own self-directed IRA for real estate investing. Just find a custodian who specializes in these accounts, and they will guide you through the process, and help you abide by all the government rules. Then, your tax-deferred account will grow the way you want it to.

You can even let a company with a Socially Conscious Real Estate Investing program help you set up your self-directed IRA, including all the forms AND whatever fees there may be. They will even take care of all the details of buying and selling the property within the IRA, as well as all of the property management.

First of all, if you know real estate investing, then you know the types of returns you can realize buying, fixing up, and holding or selling residential property. What other type of investment vehicle can pay you double-digit ROI on, over time? None I am aware of.

Second, the IRA let’s you defer the tax burden from a high-income, high tax bracket time of your life, to a lower income, lower tax-bracket stage. That’s an excellent money saver, and it keeps Uncle Sam’s mitts off your loot… never a bad thing!

Finally, in the form of City Capital Corporation’s Socially Responsible Real Estate Investing Program, you now have a financially stout, reliable business partner to handle literally ALL of the paperwork and hassles (as well as the fees!) that go along with self-directed IRA real estate investing. This is unheard of, and pretty incredible.

City Capital, and their CEO Ephren Taylor, are at the forefront of IRA and Credit Investing, and Socially Conscious community re-investment. Why not let them handle the work and hassle that goes with the territory of real estate investing, tenant issues, buying and selling property, and property management? You can take care of how to spend, or re-invest- your income… how does that sound?

Get the facts, then get investing! Let me know how it turns out.

It’s truly a shame, because with all the activity the market brings, and the interest it attracts, the neighborhood could be vital and alive. After parking our car, we walked a couple of blocks to the market. As we walked along, I couldn’t help but wonder what could be done. I asked myself, what if somebody cared enough, and had the financial resources, to buy all the houses on this street? They could fix them all up, and sell them to working families who would make this crime-ridden area a thriving community once again.

But half-way efforts wouldn’t cut it. It would need to be all – or most – of the houses on the entire street, the entire block for that matter. Otherwise you wouldn’t really be changing the neighborhood, and families wouldn’t feel safe. that would take more than an individual investor. It would take a group of investors, or even a company. But it could be done, with the right vision and leadership.

All this passed through my mind on that trip downtown a few weeks ago. It was a pleasant fantasy at the time, but I didn’t come up with any answers, so I let the matter drop.

Then I met Ephren Taylor. Well, I didn’t literally meet him, but I “met” him on the Internet, and I learned that he’s doing exactly the kind of thing I fantasized about, in cities all across the country. Not only that, but individual investors – investors just like you and me – are partnering with him to revitalize urban neighborhoods. And those investors are earning double-digit returns, often with no cash of their own.

You see, Taylor has pioneered cash free real estate investing, using only the investor’s good credit, to leverage loans for working-class families in these urban neighborhoods. he’s also created a self-directed IRA real estate investing program, that allows investors to tap into the dormant power of their own retirement funds, creating opportunity where there was none before.

All of this, combined with truly socially conscious investing guidelines, makes Taylor’s programs totally unique, empowering for the communities being impacted, life-changing for the new homeowners, and incredibly profitable for the investors.

Find out more on this site by visiting our main pages at Cash Free Real Estate Investing or IRA Real Estate Investing.