I used Trust Administration Services Corp. (www.trustlynk.com) for several years as custodians for my self-directed IRAs and they SUCKED. Horrible customer service and their systems were worse. They made several large recordkeeping errors that were a pain in the ass to correct. I actually know the president of the bank that owns TASC and when I told him about my experience he apologized and said, “Yes, we have some problems to fix there.”
I recently switched to Polycomp (www.polycomp.net) and they are awesome. Very responsive. Tight recordkeeping. Fantastic.
As to the fees, asragov, the ones you posted aren’t eggregious. If you don’t plan on making sufficient returns to justify the fees then a self-directed IRA is not the proper vehicle to use. And if you’re investing in illiquid investments – like real estate – then you should be getting compensated for the illiquidity or you’re doing something wrong.
I am a huge fan of self-directed IRAs despite my horrible customer service experience with TASC. But if you don’t plan on earning at least 15% annually on an investment you probably shouldn’t put it in a self-directed IRA because the fees are higher than other standard IRA alternatives.
