I am a retired GC in Massachusetts.

The only way it makes sense to continue to carry that debt at 4/8% while investing 15% of your income in retirement is if you are very serious about not incurring other non real estate debt and you are focused enough on your retirement accounts that they easily beat the student loan interest rates.  

@Jon KlausI would choose having the best of both worlds and investing in both as you should never put your retirement funds in one asset category.

I am looking for a feedback on the potential investment that I would like to make with my self-directed retirement account.

Hello I'm Lou Bautista I live in Avondale Az and I'm Currently a truck driver and Union Representative looking to retire in about 7 months to finally get into real estate.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to do real estate investing as a full-time job and also try to build some wealth for retirement, since I'm behind in doing that.Greg Richard

I'd like to be able to retire in the next 5 years.

I want to invest because I do not see my portfolio growing fast enough over the next thirty years to sustain my family into retirement. 

Some of these people are obvious (doctors, lawyers, business owners) others are not, (someone who is nearing retirement and has a self directed IRA with a lot of money in it and doesn't want to go into a CD or stay in the stock market). 

I have 20 years of Guard service and 10 years of active duty so I have come to the point in my career where I look down the road of monotony, boredom, increased hours with more promotion, "safe" retirement, good benefits and think "do I really want to do 10 more years of working for someone else"?