Recorded Tuesday, August 18, 2026 · 6:30 PM ET
Jeff Minnick of Directed IRA, with Dr. Canaan Van Williams and the Proactive team
Thank you for spending your Tuesday evening with us. Here is the recording in full, along with the parts worth keeping: what the account is allowed to hold, the paperwork order that keeps a transfer clean, the deal Jeff did with his own Roth IRA, and every question that came in on the night.
Unedited, start to finish. Jeff takes the first fifty-odd minutes and the room takes the rest — the questions run right through to the end, which is the part that never really survives a summary.
The player is Zoom’s own and loads when you press play. If it does not run in your browser, open the recording on Zoom instead — same video, new tab.
We meet a great many investors who wish somebody had explained this account to them ten years sooner. So rather than explain it ourselves, we asked the person who sets them up all day — and then got out of the way.
Vice President of Relationship Management · Directed IRA
Fourteen years in the self-directed IRA industry, holding both the Certified IRA Services Professional and Certified IRA Professional designations. Directed IRA is the tradename of Directed Trust Company, an Arizona trust company founded by Mat Sorensen — the tax attorney who wrote The Self-Directed IRA Handbook, now in its third edition, and the first training manual Jeff was handed when he started.
LinkedInMinute marks, so you can go straight to the part you came for. If you only have ten minutes, take 25:48 for the rules and 48:17 for the deal Jeff did with his own account — they are the two that change how people behave.
Fourteen years in the industry, and a custodian founded by the tax attorney who wrote the handbook. Why a trust company can hold what Fidelity and Schwab will not.
The rules were written in the mid-1970s to allow almost anything. Real estate, private funds, notes, metals, land, crypto — the list is long enough that the short version is the other one.
Life insurance contracts, S-corporation stock, and certain collectibles. That is the whole prohibited list.
Traditional and Roth IRAs, SEP IRAs, the solo 401(k), the HSA with its three-way tax break, and the Coverdell education account almost nobody mentions.
Passive by construction, genuinely uncorrelated to the market, compounding untaxed inside the account, and — unusually — with the rate disclosed before you invest.
Your IRA cannot transact with you, your spouse, your parents, your children, or your in-laws. Your brother, your aunt and your friends are all fine.
Greg Simonian asks whether a self-directed account has to be all-in on alternatives, and how quickly money can move between them.
Five minutes to open. Five to seven business days to transfer, two to three weeks to roll over. The one paperwork mistake that sends a transfer back to the start.
The form that authorises your custodian to wire, the supporting document that goes with it, and the vesting title that keeps the whole thing tax-sheltered.
His Roth IRA and his HSA lending together against a rehab, at 10% with two points — and exactly how the interest came back tax-free.
Promotion code PROACTIVE200: $200 off the first year of fees on a new Directed IRA account.
Dr. Canaan Van Williams on the affordable-housing portfolio behind the bonds, the short two- and three-year terms, and the quarterly income.
Ten questions from the room, the chat and the team — minimums, volatility, custodian due diligence, and whether your current employer’s 401(k) can move.
Most of the hour is mechanics, and mechanics are easy to nod along to and then forget. These are the six that decide whether the account does what you expect — the ones that cost real money when they are learned after the fact rather than before.
Life insurance contracts, S-corporation stock, and certain collectibles — alcohol, firearms, collectible cars. Everything else is fair game: real estate, undeveloped land, private funds, private company stock, promissory notes, tax lien certificates, precious metals, oil and gas, cryptocurrency. Jeff put it plainly: it is easier to tell you what you cannot invest in.
Your IRA may not transact with you, your spouse, your parents, your grandparents, your children, your grandchildren, or your sons- and daughters-in-law. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and friends are all allowed — which is why "your IRA cannot invest with family" is the wrong summary of the rule.
IRA to IRA is a transfer: about five to seven business days, and you can move part of a balance rather than all of it. An old employer plan to an IRA is a rollover: two to three weeks, initiated with the plan administrator, and — in 2026 — still settled by a paper check in the mail.
The most common reason a transfer comes back rejected. Your current custodian cannot send Apple shares to fund a bond subscription, and they will not guess which holdings you meant to liquidate. Call them, raise the cash, then file the transfer request.
On the subscription agreement the subscriber is not you. It is "Directed Trust Company FBO [your name] Roth IRA". Get that line right and every dividend flows back into the account untaxed; get it wrong and you have a personal investment with an unwelcome tax consequence. Length does not matter — Jeff has seen a title run half a page.
On an accredited questionnaire you answer personally, then title the subscription to the account. And note what the custodian is: a passive custodian reviews an asset for custody, not for merit. The due diligence stays with you.
Not one account type but six, and most people only ever hear about the first two. The figures are the 2026 limits Jeff quoted on the night; they are indexed and change, so confirm yours with your custodian or CPA before you act on them.
Retirement age for penalty-free distributions is 59½. Eligibility for the SEP IRA, solo 401(k), HSA and Coverdell depends on your circumstances — self-employment, staff, and in the HSA’s case a qualifying high-deductible health plan. A plan that merely has a high deductible does not necessarily qualify; your provider can confirm.
Opening the account is the fast bit and it is the only step the custodian controls. Everything after it depends on somebody else’s mailroom, which is why Jeff’s advice was to start earlier than feels necessary — particularly if an offering has a closing date.
An online application: your details, your beneficiary, an electronic signature. Directed IRA processes applications within one business day and emails the new account number.
IRA to IRA, custodian to custodian, no taxable event. Partial transfers are fine, so you can move only what an investment needs and leave the rest where it is. Liquidate to cash first.
From an old employer plan. Start with the plan administrator, not the custodian. If it is your current employer, check whether the plan allows an in-service rollover — more do than used to, sometimes for part of the balance.
Check, wire, ACH or a linked bank account. Wires are available the following day; the rest clear in a few business days.
A Direction of Investment form authorising the custodian, plus the supporting document — a subscription agreement for a private fund, a purchase contract for property, an invoice for metals. Then the vesting title, and the wire goes out.
Jeff closed the presentation with a transaction of his own rather than a hypothetical: his Roth IRA and his health savings account lending together against a property somebody else was rehabbing, after that borrower had exhausted the bank financing.
The point of it is the last line. Every dollar of interest came back into a Roth IRA and an HSA, which is to say it came back tax-free, and then went straight out again into the next deal.
Described as presented on the call. It is one investor’s completed transaction, offered as an illustration of how a note is held inside a retirement account — not a Proactive offering, not a projection, and not a representation of any result you should expect.
Everything that came in during the session — from the room, from the chat, and from our own team — tidied up for reading but not softened. If your question is not here, it did not get asked, so send it to us and we will get you an answer.
Yes. It covers every asset class you can hold, and private funds are one of them — there is a chapter that walks step by step through making that kind of investment with an IRA or 401(k), including how to handle and title the investment documents. Offerings like Proactive’s are an extremely common investment for us to process.
You can still hold stocks, bonds, mutual funds and ETFs here. Most clients are in alternatives — that is why they opened the account — and we are not a discount brokerage, so we will not be the cheapest place to trade the market.
What I mostly see is investors taking returns from an alternative and, if there is not enough to do another one yet, parking it in a stock or a bond so it keeps working. You can also transfer it back to a Schwab IRA if you would rather invest it there. Both roads are open.
Yes. A private fund, a rental property and some precious metals can all sit in a single self-directed IRA, and you can move between asset types as opportunities come up.
There is no minimum. You could open an account with $5 if you wanted to. What you can invest is simply whatever balance the account holds, so in practice it is the investment’s own minimum that sets the number.
That is an accurate statistic, and it is IRAs alone. Add the employer plans — 401(k)s, thrift savings plans — and the figure is closer to $47 trillion in US retirement accounts.
Also true. Look at how the wealthiest households allocate: the further up you go, the larger the share of wealth sitting in real estate and alternatives rather than in the market.
That is exactly right. We are trying to democratise it — the everyday American investing the same way institutions and family offices do, in things like real estate. An operator like Proactive Sustainable Bonds is one of the ways that becomes available to you.
Real estate is an appreciating asset, and it is not moving with the market day to day. That is exactly why many of our account holders diversify into it — it tends to appreciate over time and produce a more consistent rate of return, which takes some of the volatility out.
Directed IRA is a passive custodian. We do not recommend investments and we do not review them for merit — the due diligence sits with the account owner, and I would keep saying that.
What we do review is whether an asset is approved for custody: whether the documentation is there to hold it properly, and whether there is anything about the parties involved — a history of fraud, say — that means we would rather not hold it. Being founded by a tax attorney, we have a robust compliance department behind that review. It is a real check, but it is not a substitute for your own research.
It depends on the plan, and only your plan administrator can tell you. The sponsoring company sets the rules, and many plans do not allow a rollover while you are still working and contributing. But some do, more are allowing it than used to, and some permit a partial rollover rather than the whole balance. It is worth the phone call.
If you skim one part of this page, make it this one. These are the moments where the thinking behind the account came through most clearly.
“It’s easier for me to tell you guys what you can’t invest into.”
“The true power of a self-directed IRA is you’re able to invest in what you know and what you’re more comfortable with.”
“What other vehicle does the government afford you where you can actually build wealth truly 100% tax-free?”
“It is 2026, but 99.9% of rollovers are still checks sent through the mail.”
“It’s unfortunate they don’t teach you Retirement 101 when we’re in school, so the onus is really on you.”
“We are trying to democratize — you can invest the same way as these large institutional investors or family offices.”
$200 off the first year of fees on a new Directed IRA account.
Directed IRAAnything from the session: which account fits your situation, how to get an old 401(k) moving, what our bonds pay and how they are secured, or an introduction to Jeff. Tell us roughly where you are and we will come back to you.
Nobody calls you unless you ask. This is educational, not advice, and not an offer of any security.
You do not need to be an accredited investor to ask. Proactive’s bonds themselves are offered only to accredited investors under Rule 506(c) — a separate conversation, and one we are happy to have when you get there.
This page and the recording are for educational and informational purposes only. They are not tax, legal, accounting or investment advice, and nothing here is an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Please consult your own attorney, CPA and financial adviser about your circumstances before acting on anything in the session.
Statements made during the recording reflect the speakers’ views on Tuesday, August 18, 2026 and are not updated. Contribution limits, retirement ages and plan rules are quoted as stated on the call for tax year 2026; they are indexed, they change, and they depend on your eligibility — confirm them with your custodian or tax professional. The transaction described in the case study is one investor’s completed deal, presented as an illustration of custody and titling, not as an offering, a projection, or an expected result.
Proactive Sustainable Bonds is not a custodian, a trust company, a broker-dealer or an investment adviser, and provides no custodial services. Directed IRA is the tradename of Directed Trust Company, an independent third party; Proactive receives no compensation for accounts opened there and the promotion code was offered by Directed IRA. A passive custodian does not review any investment for merit — due diligence remains with the account owner.
Interests in Proactive’s bonds are offered solely under Rule 506(c) of Regulation D to verified accredited investors, through the Fund’s Private Placement Memorandum and subscription agreement, which contain material risk factors, fees and conflicts of interest and which govern in all respects. Such securities are unregistered, speculative and illiquid, involve risk including the loss of capital, and are not FDIC- or SIPC-insured. Targets are illustrative and are not guarantees; past performance does not indicate future results.