If you follow most of the traditional advice, you probably view retirement investments as one simple thing: an investment in the stock market. Sure, people will diversify through index funds, mutual funds, and more, but at the end of the day, they’re still treating the stock market like the only game in town.

Fortunately, the way retirement accounts are set up allows for more freedom and flexibility than that. In fact, it allows for a heck of a lot more flexibility when you’re working within a Self-Directed IRA. And what’s more, many of these strategies are great ways to diversify your overall retirement portfolio so you can plan on retirement with more security and less anxiety about your future.

So what if you never thought you’d be using these strategies to help with retirement? As the old saying goes, you live and you learn…

Strategy Number One: Real Estate Investing. Real estate investing is a key way to ensure that you hedge against the stock market–after all, real estate is part of its own market. Making wise real estate investments with your retirement money isn’t only possible, but it’s ideal in many cases because it presents the opportunity for sustained growth over time.

If you don’t know a lot about real estate, that doesn’t necessarily preclude you from thinking about real estate investments as an option. Just as you don’t have to be an expert in the stock market to invest in it, you don’t have to be a real estate expert to have success with real estate. Anyone who’s ever sold a home for more than they bought it will tell you the same.

Strategy Number Two: Private IRA Lending. Making private loans and earning interest on those loans can happen with a Self-Directed IRA. It’s one of the options available through Self-Directed IRAs that few ever take advantage of. Of course, like any other type of investment, you’ll want to do your due diligence before you make any sort of loan. But with the right knowledge and foresight, you can have a lot of success by utilizing this option as a piece of your retirement portfolio.

Strategy Number Three: Private Companies. If investing in private companies sounds like an investment strategy reserved only for the very wealthy, consider that anyone with a Self-Directed IRA can make some sort of investment in a private company in their retirement portfolio. After all, any stock investment is an investment in a public company…why should private companies be so incredibly different? The answer is, they actually aren’t!

Strategy Number Four: Tax Liens and Tax Sales. Investing in tax liens is becoming more and more popular these days, and since you can include them in a Self-Directed IRA, they’re actually seeing more activity in peoples’ retirement portfolios. Tax liens allow you to have the government do the collecting work for you while you focus on the investment itself–or simply sit back and relax, knowing that you’ve spent your money wisely.

Strategy Number Five: Commodities. Even if you’ve never viewed yourself as a commodities investor, it’s not difficult to see the opportunities present in precious metals like gold and silver. They not only offer a hedge against inflation, but offer a general way to diversify your investments.

For more information on the opportunities present in Self-Directed IRAs, be sure to call us at 866-7500-IRA(472) or keep reading AmericanIRA.com to see exactly how you can take control over your financial future. The more proactive you are now, the more peace and security you’ll feel over your retirement nest egg.

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