Real estate can be a great investment for retirement.  Retirement accounts can be a great way to eliminate taxes.  So you might be surprised to discover it may be a TERRIBLE idea to buy real estate inside your IRA or 401k.  I’m Bryan Ellis.  I’ll tell you why RIGHT NOW in Episode #131.-----Hello SDI Nation!  Welcome to the podcast of record for savvy, self-directed investors like you!No secret here, my friends:  I love self-directed retirement accounts… particularly roth accounts.  The tax advantages are really amazing and for many people, the bigger and less well-known benefit comes from the estate planning potential of those accounts.So it’s my default to assume that if an investment can be done inside of a self-directed IRA or 401k, that it should be.  And while it turns out that’s a reasonable DEFAULT for nearly every other asset class, that default is absolutely NOT true for real estate, and we’ll talk about why right now.But first, a quick announcement for those of you who own real estate notes.  If you own a real estate note, may I interest you in a nice wad of cold, hard CASH?  I’m looking to acquire some first-lien real estate notes, and am ready to make it happen right away.  So if you personally own one or more notes – no brokers, please, this ain’t my first rodeo – and if you’d like to find out more about converting your note into a big chunk of cash, reach out to me now by texting the word SELLNOTE with no spaces to 33444 or go to SDIRadio.com/sellnote.  Again, that’s text the word SELLNOTE spelled SELLNOTE (with no spaces) to 33444 or go to SDIRadio.com/sellnote.  Now… on to the question of:  Should you do your real estate investing through your retirement account.You know, there are some amazing benefits to investing for retirement through an IRA or 401k, particularly the self-directed versions of those accounts.  The tax benefits are astounding.  For example:  Let’s say that you make an investment and experience a profit of $250,000.  Well, outside of a retirement account, you’re going to owe taxes on that profit… and those taxes could very, very easily be way over $100,000.  So you sell your investment, you pay your taxes, and you’re left with $150,000… and then you can make another investment.But with a retirement account… that profit is sheltered.  The $100,000 you’d have paid in taxes stays in your account, not subject to taxation, and you can reinvest it in any type of asset you’d like.  So, in other words, your profits accrue entirely tax free.And depending on whether you’re using a traditional or roth account, you’ll get other tax advantages too.  With a traditional account, you get to take an income tax deduction for money that you deposit into the account.  And with the Roth account… it’s REALLY amazing… you actually never, ever have to pay taxes on your profit at all.  It’s really amazing.So why in the world would you ever consider NOT doing your real estate investments in an IRA or 401k where these amazing tax benefits can be achieved?Well, there are a few reasons.First:  Funding.  If, like most people, you prefer to leverage your investment in real estate by financing some of the purchase with a loan, your options for doing so through a retirement account are very limited.  Tax regulations make it basically impossible to get a loan for your IRA through your local bank or mortgage broker and, in fact, there are relatively few lenders who do the specialized type of lending – called non-recourse lending – that is compatible with retirement accounts in the first place.  And watch out!  You can bet on it that your IRA will actually owe an income tax bill if you get a loan to do deals.  That’s right… not everything is inherently tax-free just because it’s done in an IRA.  So the first big reason to consider doing real estate deals OUTSIDE of your retirement account is that funding becomes substantially more complicated.The second reason is all about taxes.  You see, the big reason to use a retirement acco