Lorraine and her husband, Richard, accelerated their path to retirement when they began investing in real estate in their self-directed IRAs. Their investments helped a local economy hit hard by the recession and continue to inspire their children.
In 2008 and 2009 their Florida community was wrought with foreclosures. Lorraine and Richard saw opportunities in buying foreclosures as investment properties with their self-directed IRAs.
Because of the downturn, they had no trouble finding available service providers to make repairs on their properties.
“Nobody was hiring anybody,” Lorraine says, “And so we met air conditioning guys, builders, and painters. We kept them in business in a lot of different ways. You cannot do (the work) yourself, because it's in an IRA.”
Lorraine and Richard still work with these companies. And even though business is booming now, the service providers still remember how the couple kept them afloat during tough times.
“When we call, it's always, ‘Hi, Lorraine. How's Richard?’ and, ‘Yes. I'll go do that tomorrow or today.’ They can tend to drop wherever they are doing, like the tiling person and the air conditioning person. They just have always had our backs, basically, because we helped them out when they needed the business.”
Lorraine and Richard were also sympathetic toward renters during the downturn.
“Because they were foreclosed on - and these are decent people who just bought at the wrong time - we would keep the rent exactly the same for up to five years, as long as they maintained the houses,” Lorraine says. “That ended up being a really good relationship for the longest time.”
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24 май 2023
