Note Investing Made Simple: Becoming the Bank
Fred Moskowitz shares how the volatility of the tech industry led him to seek alternative income streams and ultimately discover mortgage note investing. Instead of owning properties and dealing with tenants, Fred focuses on owning the debt—collecting payments as the lender rather than the borrower.
Together, Derek and Fred walk through the fundamentals of note investing, including buying performing notes, using partials to deploy smaller amounts of capital, understanding foreclosure timelines, evaluating borrower risk, and navigating state-specific laws. They also discuss taxation realities and why self-directed IRAs and Roth IRAs can be powerful vehicles for note investors.
This episode demystifies note investing and shows how it can fit into both active and passive investment strategies.
Why Smart Investors Are Using IRAs for Real Estate with Henry Yoshida
Henry Yoshida shares his journey from Merrill Lynch and traditional financial services into building Rocket Dollar, a platform designed to make alternative investing inside retirement accounts as easy as buying stocks in a brokerage account. After years in finance, Henry realized that even industry professionals didn’t understand self-directed IRAs—and those who did were often frustrated by slow, unhelpful custodians.
The discussion covers how Rocket Dollar structures IRAs using IRA-owned entities that allow investors to control their own bank accounts, drastically improving transaction speed and flexibility while maintaining compliance. Derek and Henry also dig into the dangers of prohibited transactions, why many custodians overstep their role, and why velocity of capital matters when closing real estate deals.
The episode expands into broader macro insights—why most retirement money is trapped in stocks and mutual funds, why diversification is broken, how required minimum distributions drive government policy, and why Henry believes private investments will overtake public investments within the next decade.