Mark’s Story Part III: Promissory Notes & What He Wishes He Knew Sooner

Equity Trust Educational Speaker, John Bowens, sat down with our Self-Directed Investor of the Year, Mark from North Carolina, to discuss how he successfully completed his first two investments resulting in $119,000 of tax-deferred profits.

In part three of the interview, Mark walks through his note investment, what the process was like for him and what he wishes he knew sooner about this retirement saving strategy.

Haven’t read part one or part two yet? Read Part I of Mark’s Story and Part II of Mark’s Story

John: Let’s go ahead and jump into the next transaction. Now this is a little different because it’s a note. Now, in the first transaction, Mark’s IRA was holding a deed to the property.

But another way in which folks can invest with their self-directed IRA is to make loans secured by real estate, or potentially unsecured loans.

Now, again, it’s up to Mark or up to the account holder to do their own due diligence. But Mark, can you take use through the transaction?

Mark: Sure. The realtor that got me involved with this was a friend of mine. And he knew I wanted to get involved with real estate also, and he asked me, what, what do you want to do?

Do you want to actually buy some rehab properties? Do you want to just rent? Or do you want to invest in notes or how do you want to do it? And I said, whatever makes more sense, I’m not sure.

So, having said that, about two months later, he came to me with this opportunity.

They needed somebody else to invest $100,000 and then invest another $25,000 in the holding, the interest payments, if you will, for the loan from the bank.

He got me involved with this and initially it was going to be a rehab of an existing house that was there. The property is located about two miles south of downtown Charlotte in a very desirable area. They are rehabbing houses in this area often.

Now the builder itself initially that was one of the partners, said, “The margins are kind of tight. I’m not sure whether it makes sense to rehab this.”

The realtor knew what the codes were in Charlotte and was able to actually turn this into two properties, rather than one property, because it was on a corner and have each property face each street so you could actually have two homes on one existing lot itself.

So ultimately, that’s what we did. It was a tear down and we put two $700,000 homes on this one lot versus one $700,000 property.

They used me for $100,000 in the carrying costs for the loan that they were taking out. And that was $25,000. Again, I was one of four partners.

Ultimately, what we ended up with was $75,000 apiece, or, you know, or in this particular case, $300,000 split between four. It was a great, great find.

Client story: Greg Explains Why He Loans Money with His Self-Directed IRA

John: So, Mark, did you get a promissory note? Was that the actual financial instrument if you will, that your IRA received?

Mark: We had to do an unsecured note because they actually took out a loan and the loan wasn’t in my name. It could not be titled or anything in my name. And that’s why we did it that way.

We contacted my attorney and Equity Trust to work through how we could set this up to where it worked for all parties. And ultimately, that’s why we had to do an unsecured note.

John: Okay. There are secured notes and unsecured notes.

So, in this case, Mark got all of his financial team members in place and made a loan to the builders LLC. He was partnering with a few other individuals as well. And then ultimately upon the sale, the monies were returned split according to the agreements.

His IRA made a $74,000 interest, income profit, if you will, into the retirement plan. At closing, that money went back into the IRA.

What are your plans going forward? What types of transactions are you looking at?

Mark: Well, the last one that you just showed John, we closed on the property I believe on the 20th of December (2018), and we all went out to celebrate and have dinner.

Shortly there afterwards, two of the three other folks that was involved with this asked me to and I’ve invested in two additional properties with them.

Now this time, it’s not an unsecured note, it is secured through real estate. There’s two separate transactions. Both closed in the month of January. One of them for $135,000, and the other one for $150,000.

There’s a total of four homes being built from the ground up. They bought lots and now they’re building on those lots. They’re small luxury homes.