Using a SDIRA to fund a yellow letter marketing campaign

[Michael Mies]

Has anyone used their self-directed IRA to fund a marketing campaign? The campaign would be specifically designed to secure a property which would be purchased by the IRA.

[Dev Horn]

This is an excellent question!  I'm eager to see if an expert comes in to answer.

I've assumed that your SDIRA must be used for the purchase of assets (property) rather than the purchase of advertising or other expenses. If that's true, you can use non-IRA funds for the marketing and use SDIRA funds for the purchase, then calculate the SDIRA's "share" of the deal based upon the total cost basis, including the marketing and other business expenses paid for with non-IRA money. My understanding is that you can BLEND IRA and non-IRA funds like that as long as the SDIRA gets paid back its fair share of the profits AND those funds are returned or added back to the SDIRA.