Client Success Story: High Yield Mortgage Loans

For this month’s Client Success story, we interviewed Irv Blander, a New York native who now resides in south Florida. Mr. Blander is the owner and operator of Blander Mortgage Corporation, a hard money lending business in Miami, FL.

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What made you want to self-direct your IRA with NuView?

I chose to self-direct with NuView mainly for the purpose of un-complicating my mortgage investment transactions. About 6 years ago I attempted to fund a mortgage loan through my previous custodian and it took way too long for them to review and approve the documents, to the point that I decided to seek a more efficient alternative. It was then that my attorney, Kristen Lynch in Ft Lauderdale, who is an expert in retirement planning, recommended NuView IRA as a preferred custodian for self-directed investments.

What is your preferred type of self-directed investments?

Having 42 years of experience in real estate brokerage, real estate investing, and mortgage lending, my preferred self-directed investments are high yield first-time mortgages for real estate investors. It must be carefully thought out, short term, 1st mortgage, 1 to 2 years in duration, and typically yielding 12-16%. I have probably done around 1000 of this type of deals, many in my self-directed IRA. It is very important for this type of investing, that you have a strong real estate background otherwise you may “get burned”.

What was your most successful IRA investment?

Believe it or not, each and every one of my deals have been successful. The larger mortgages of course yield more profit. I have made near 1000 mortgage loans since the year 2000, some in my IRA owned LLC’s, some in my mortgage company which are not IRA owned. To my recollection, only about 5 foreclosures were filed, only 2 of these resulted in actually taking back the properties, and in those 2 foreclosures there were no losses. We average 12-16% monetary return on the mortgage investments, both in the IRA self-directed category and in my non-sheltered mortgage company.

Do you have any tips for fellow self-directors?

If you self-direct, rule #1 is make sure you have competent ongoing legal advice. Rule #2 is the similar to rule #1. Avoid mortgage investing unless you have extensive real estate experience and if you do have that type of experience, retain a top notch (IRA) lawyer and a top notch mortgage compliance attorney, in both instances, preferably not your local real estate attorney.

For those who are adequately experienced, mortgage investment yields are phenomenal.  Beyond the necessary real estate experience, it is absolutely essential to have additional knowledge of both Federal (consumer financial protection bureau, RESPA, Dodd Frank, Fair Credit, etc.) and State mortgage compliance laws, rules, and regulations.

My experience is that most local real estate attorneys don’t have the required compliance expertise. Personally, I use a large national compliance law firm, for the mortgage compliance. For the ERISA (IRA) compliance I also recommend using only an experienced attorney.

Learn more about self-directed IRAs.

If you or someone you know has a self-directed IRA success story to share, we’d love to hear it. Please submit your stories to success@nuviewira.com for consideration as a spotlight story in one of our upcoming newsletters.

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