Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott Maurer.
Scott, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Our company was founded back in 2004 as our manager, Jack Callahan, became a franchisee owner specializing in self-directed IRA administration. Jack, who is a CFP, had referred many of his own financial planning clients to a company in California that specialized in allowing individuals to invest their RIAs and retirement funds into real estate and other alternative assets.
Jack was offered the franchise for the Tampa Bay area in 2004 and we expanded to Atlanta at the end of 2008. The franchise agreement ended in 2011, and since that time, Advanta IRA has operated in both the Tampa and Atlanta areas, providing quality educational offerings and services to clients located all over the country, but many of them situated in those geographic areas. We currently have close to 5,000 active accounts and provide administrative and recordkeeping services to over $800 million worth of alternative assets for our clients and their IRAs.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has not always been a smooth road as we started out as a brand-new company, with an innovative investment concept that not many people knew about. It took some time in both our Tampa and Atlanta markets to meet people and explain what services and options we provided to people with retirement accounts. The time involved was not only on the education of the average individual, but in building a trust level with many CPAs, tax advisors, attorneys, realtors, and financial advisors. These individuals often refer their own clients to us for our services, and as with any new company, it took a little bit of time to prove our worth to these professionals.
Additionally, the downturn in the real estate and stock markets in 2007-2008 led to some struggles as more and more people were not looking for alternative assets or stocks, but rather placing their hard-earned money into “safer” CDs and money market accounts. That being said, there were some other savvy investors during the real estate downturn that used that to their advantage, scooping up low-priced housing in good neighborhoods to add to their retirement portfolio.
Please tell us about Advanta IRA.
Our company occupies a specialized niche in the retirement plan industry. Rather than talking to individuals about the “conventional” stocks, bonds and mutual funds, we allow individuals to invest their IRAs and retirement funds into a number of alternative assets inside a “self-directed IRA”. A self-directed IRA is exactly as it sounds. The IRA owner chooses the investment that they wish to make within their retirement plan, and they are not limited to the investments sold by a bank or brokerage firm. Most IRA custodians limit their clients to the investments that they sell (like mutual funds), but the IRS rules regarding IRA investments allow for much broader investment options.
Our clients typically use their IRAs and former 401k funds to invest in real estate rental property, real estate rehabs, private notes, private placements and partnerships, precious metals and so much more. We are known in the Atlanta area for allowing such investments within an IRA as the bigger banks and brokerage firms simply do not want to hold these private investments and do the recordkeeping work that goes along with them. For instance, it is quite easy to buy a stock or mutual fund in a brokerage account.
However, when you IRA buys real estate (and subsequently has the income and expenses of a rental property to deal with) there is quite a bit more paperwork and compliance that we are set-up to handle. We are set apart from others due to these unique investment options as well as our concierge account manager system that allows for us to give individualized attention to each and every account that we administer. We are most proud that our number one source of new business is from existing client referrals, which means we are doing something right.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If we could start over, we may have focused a bit more on the relationship building with influential individuals and businesses. We have worked with a number of private hedge funds, companies, partnerships and real estate investment firms over the years to assist their clients with these investments. However, there are quite a number of these businesses in existence throughout the country and we could have done a better job of finding them initially. In the Atlanta market specifically, we also were not as active at identifying our potential clients, the organizations that they were part of, etc. and relied too much on assuming the Atlanta market was simply so big that we would automatically increase our revenue. In the last two years, we have had a much greater emphasis on building those one-on-one relationships with many different people and organizations and are beginning to realize the fruits of our labor from those efforts.
Contact Info:
- Address: Advanta IRA
3525 Piedmont Road, NE,
Bldg. 8, Suite 101
Atlanta, GA 30305 - Website: www.AdvantaIRA.com
- Phone: 800-425-0653
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AdvantaIRA/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/advantaira
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