Real Estate

Yes, your IRA can invest in real estate. It can own single-family rental properties, purchase and flip homes for profit, lend money to real estate investors, or even hold options and contracts on properties. Your IRA can also invest in small private LLCs that own residential or commercial properties alongside other investors or IRAs. Additionally, it can participate in syndications or real estate funds as an investor.

Contrary to common belief, IRAs have always been allowed to invest in real estate. With over $15 trillion held in IRA accounts across the U.S., this powerful tool is often overlooked for real estate investments like rentals, flips, commercial properties, and more.

At this point, many people ask, “Why haven’t I heard about this before?” The answer lies in the major providers of IRAs, most of them find real estate investments “administratively unfeasible” because managing properties requires more effort than handling publicly traded assets like stocks, mutual funds, or REITs. 

Since these firms typically restrict their IRA offerings to the products they sell, the option to invest in real estate has remained underutilized.

While it’s always been possible to own real estate in an IRA, the limited number of guides who allow it has kept this opportunity out of the spotlight. However, for savvy investors who know and love real estate, using an IRA for real estate is a practical and powerful way to diversify and grow wealth.