When it comes to retirement investing, a simple choice in the present can affect your success for decades in the future. It’s these choices—the ones that seem small now—that can add up to a major difference down the line, particularly due to the compounding effect. The compounding effect states that the longer your timeline is, the more powerful your results can be if you invest in the right way. That also comes to how you choose to go about your retirement investing. If you’re thinking of selecting a Self-Directed IRA Custodian, it helps to know the right one first—that way you can enjoy a relationship for years to come.

But that still leaves us with one question. How do you choose a Self-Directed IRA Custodian that suits your needs? We’ve compiled a checklist of questions you can put to work to help you make a decision:

How Does the Self-Directed IRA Custodian Structure Their Fees?

We talked about compounding returns earlier. Compounding returns don’t just come from maximizing the upside, but also by minimizing the downside. After all, a Self-Directed IRA Custodian isn’t going to work for free. They’re going to charge you fees, and you need to make sure that these fees have as little impact on your long-term wealth building as possible.

Here at American IRA, we use a flat fee structure. This means that when the value of your portfolio or accounts goes up, you don’t have to pay us more as a percentage. We offer one, low, set annual administration fee. As your account’s value increases, the fees as a relative percentage of this value can actually go down over time, because you’re paying the same amount on a larger account. With many Self-Directed IRA Custodians, they want to get paid as you make more money.

You might figure that paying more for that growth makes sense, but keep in mind that Self-Directed IRA Custodians aren’t financial advisers. Because they don’t have a say in what you invest in, there’s no need to incentivize your custodian to grow the account. A Self-Directed IRA Custodian’s role is instead to administer the account in a safe, reliable way so your paperwork is handled the proper way. We don’t believe you should have to be punished by exorbitant fees just for having success with this structure.

How Much Experience Does the Self-Directed IRA Custodian Have?

When you visit a Self-Directed IRA administration firm’s website, take a look at the section about their team.  Take note of what you see there. Have they been involved with Self-Directed IRAs for years and even decades at a time? Do they have a background in the exact kind of asset classes that investors need to know if they’re going to use a Self-Directed IRA in a reliable way? If you can’t find this kind of experience at the Self-Directed IRA Custodian you’re thinking about, you may want to move to the next choice.

Of course, you could just call it a day and realize that American IRA fits both of these criteria. We have both the experience and know-how to administer a Self-Directed IRA—and the fee structure that makes sense for people who want more independence and growth from their own portfolio decisions. We believe that these core values—value and experience—put us ahead of the rest.

Interested in learning more about Self-Directed IRAs?  Contact American IRA, LLC at 866-7500-IRA (472) for a free consultation.  Download our free guides or visit us online at www.AmericanIRA.com.