Despite the doom and gloom over the investment markets in 2008-2010, NuView continued to grow rapidly in both net accounts and total assets under custody, proving that self-di- rected investors were much more flexible and able to pivot to asset classes that could weather the storm. As with any economic downturn, investment opportunities began to present themselves, and short- ly after the 2008 crash, our clients began finding opportunities. Some investments became attractive because of depressed pricing while new asset class opportunities began to take shape, and as a result, THE OPPORTUNITY (2010 – 2019) self-directed investing really accel- erated. We saw real estate begin to generate cash flow, tax liens pay premium interest, distressed mortgage funds clearing assets off banks’ balance sheets, and REO properties and short sales becoming common types of purchases. It was also during this time that I met another impactful client, Greg Bond, who had an amazing story of real estate. He invested passively in real estate outside his IRA while running a map store (for those under 30, you actually had to use a real map before smartphones were invented!) in the 90s and early 2000s. I found it interesting that he stopped buying real estate in 2003 because the basic fundamental investment principles were no longer applicable during the boom. Once he closed his map busi- ness, he decided to get back into real estate, this time full-time – now that he felt the basic investment funda- mentals were implementable. Greg started his self-directed account in 2009 with $58k and has grown it to over $1.5 million. His wife, Jane, has seen her $27k account in 2009 grow to over $1 million today. They did this through a disciplined approach of
finding discounted assets and either cash flowing them or flipping them to maximize return. Just as our clients were taking advantage of market opportuni- ties, so was NuView. In 2012, we launched our institutional platform to provide financial advisors and investment issuers and syndicators a custodial platform for more Wall Street-like packaged product that was created for retail investors. The Institutional division has seen exponential growth in the last eight years as more and more passive investors look to gain exposure to the private equity markets through larger group investments. THE UNKNOWN (2020) As the world currently fights off the Covid-19 pandemic, many investors are wondering where to go from here. It’s a difficult question to answer as we have never experienced a pan- demic related economic shut-down that landed over 20 million people on unemployment in just 30 days. Financial markets and real estate markets alike are all trying to digest the information to see what the ulti- mate economic impact may be. We are seeing many of our clients stay the course as they did in 2008. They have investments that they believe can withstand a potential correction. We have other clients that are accu- mulating cash and even selling in preparation of buying opportunities in the future. Regardless of where you stand – self-directing your retirement accounts is the only way to stay nim- ble during economic uncertainty. Stay safe, get educated, and remember, opportunities are avail- able in good and bad economic times – you just need to know where to look! Happy Investing!
Jason DeBono is the VP and COO of NuView Trust Company, a Self-Directed Custodian with $1.5 billion in assets under custody.
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