Buying gold should seem easy enough on the surface. And it isn’t the most difficult thing in the world. But there’s a wrong way and a right way to purchase gold as an investment.
The wrong way is to buy physical gold and store it in a drawer or safe inside your home. The right way is to buy it as part of your gold IRA account for your retirement.
As you discover how to buy physical gold, you’ll learn the true value of precious metals as a retirement investment. While you can make money the other way, it leaves a lot to be desired.
We’ll touch upon the downside to buying physical gold for personal ownership as opposed to retirement investing. Keep reading to discover the major differences between the two and learn why gold IRA investing is far superior.
The Downsides of Buying Physical Gold for Yourself
As you’re about to learn, there are serious downsides to buying gold for yourself in lieu of a gold IRA. Some of these negatives are so critical that you must pay attention. Buying gold the wrong way versus the right way could mean the difference between an easy retirement and serious difficulties.
Some of the downsides to purchasing physical gold for yourself include:
- Liquidity problems – when buying physical gold, it’s possible you’ll suddenly need to turn around and sell it one day. This will create liquidity problems if you aren’t connected to a top-quality gold IRA broker. Why? As a long-term investment, you can store your gold and earn funds for decades. But from a short-term perspective, you might be forced to sell to a broker that charges high fees and pays below market value. When selling gold back to your IRA broker, they pay their customers fair market value within 24 hours. Liquidity only becomes an issue when you buy physical gold for yourself as opposed to a gold IRA.
- No assistance from investment brokers – your investment brokers, meaning your stock market brokers, do not possess the ability to invest in physical gold. So they cannot advise you on anything related to your gold investments. Even more important, they cannot help you sell your gold investments for a profit. On the other hand, by opening a gold IRA, a physical gold broker can help every step of the way. They can help you set up your IRA account, purchase gold at market value, safely store it, and much more. And when it’s time to begin selling gold during retirement, they’ll take it off your hands at current market rates.
- Attempting to time the gold market – when you buy and hold for retirement this isn’t a major concern. But when you buy for the short-term and attempt to time the market, you could end up losing money instead of gaining value. It’s never best to attempt to time the market. So if you do buy physical gold for yourself, be prepared to hold it for the long-term. The best way to buy it is through a gold IRA account, which is a tax-advantaged fully compliant IRS account.
Other Disadvantages of Buying Physical Gold for Yourself
Besides the reasons mentioned above, there are other disadvantages of buying physical gold for yourself. One such disadvantage is attempting to verify old or rare gold coins.
You see, some investors attempt to make profits buying old or rare gold coins. This isn’t the same as purchasing gold, silver, or other precious metals for your IRA account. The difference is the investor is attempting to gain value for the coin’s rarity and nothing more. When buying it for IRA account, you’re looking to gain value on the gold content itself. Whether or not the coin is old or rare is irrelevant.
As you can imagine, verifying the legitimacy of old, rare gold coins isn’t easy. You’ll likely have to pay an expert to verify each coin. This will seriously cut down on your profits over the long run. But it’s all part of the game that you’re attempting to play if you buy rare gold coins. So keep this in mind if this is the investment avenue you intend to go down.
Properly storing your gold coins can also be a real pain in the neck for an investor buying physical gold for yourself. When you keep your precious metals in a gold IRA, your broker will connect you with a top-notch storage facility. You’ll easily store your gold coins for retirement in a top-quality segregated personal vault.
On the other hand, keeping gold at home isn’t necessarily the safest thing. If someone breaks into your house, they may come across your gold coin stash. Or if you put a safe in your house, burglars will know that something valuable is inside. They’ll take the time to break into the safe and steal your cherished precious metals.
It’s much better to play it safe and avoid personal gold storage at all costs. Buy precious metals as part of your gold IRA account and safely store it in a vault with excellent security.
In fact, we recommend only working with the best gold brokers in the business. Read our list of the top 10 gold companies to learn about our favorite recommendations.
The Upsides of Buying Physical Gold for Retirement in a Gold IRA
Although we’ve discussed the negatives of buying gold for yourself, it’s time to shed light on gold investing for retirement. Believe it or not, you should already know that there is a big difference. We’ve touched upon some of the major differences already. But we’d like to share some more reasons why physical gold IRA investing is the way to go.
Some of the upsides of buying physical gold for retirement include:
- Owning a physical tangible asset – unlike most investments, buying physical gold for retirement means owning a tangible asset. Forget about buying paper stocks and bonds that possess no real-world value besides the numbers on your computer screen. Physical gold is unlike many other commodities yet it continues to grow in value through the years. Many commodities possess value but they often require maintenance, feeding, and fertilizer. Gold and silver require storage, safekeeping, and a willingness to wait for your investment to mature in value.
- Precious metals cannot be erased or hacked – unlike other investments like stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, it’s impossible to erase or hack physical gold. This provides added value to investors because your wealth is safely secure in a top level storage vault. You don’t have to worry about some geeky hacker stealing everything you’ve worked for. They have no way of getting there grubby little hands on your physical gold sitting in front of a computer screen. This is the safest type of investment because you can actually hold it in the palm of your hand. Unless someone physically steals it from you, it will retain its worth and gain more value for years to come.
- Precious metals like gold and silver are portable – so you can take them wherever you need to go at a moment’s notice. As a retirement investor, you’ll want to keep them safely secure in your vault. But if the worst were ever to happen you may need to get your hands on money fast. Your gold is sitting there waiting for you to claim it during times of crisis. And you never know, because with all of the economic turmoil and political strife the worst could theoretically happen. Even though no one wants to believe it’s possible.
More Reasons to Buy Physical Gold for Retirement in a Gold IRA
Besides the points mentioned above, there are other reasons to invest in a gold IRA. Now that you understand how to buy physical gold, it’s more important to understand this information than ever.
As an example, you should know that you do not need specialized knowledge to invest in your gold IRA account. You aren’t purchasing old or rare precious metals. And you do not need to know how to verify their validity. You just need to buy gold, silver, platinum, or palladium for its content and nothing more. The gold itself is what’s valuable. Not the fact that it’s some rare or special coin that other collectors want to possess.
The other great thing about investing in gold is that it’s private and confidential. Nobody needs to know that you own physical gold. You can keep it to yourself and no one would ever be the wiser. This investable asset can remain safe, secure, private, and confidential for as long as you desire.
Choosing the Best Gold Company for Retirement Investing
Now that you recognize the value of a gold IRA, it’s time to consider choosing a gold company. It’s in your best interest to only do business with the best. That’s why we wholeheartedly only recommend 10 companies.
But truthfully, we really love Regal Assets because they are our #1 choice. Do yourself a favor and visit this page to read our full review. Afterward, visit the Regal Assets website and sign up for their free gold IRA investor’s kit. It provides invaluable information to help you on your alternative IRA investing journey.
How to buy gold the correct way is an excellent question. With so much uncertainty in the world it’s good to have a hedge, and one of the best ways to do so as you’ve put so well here is to buy gold. I also like how you’ve mentioned the downsides as well. As with any investment there are risks. Great to know about Regal Assets. I like how they offer a free gold IRA investor’s kit, which I will definitely check out further through your link here. Thanks for the recommendation and looking forward to reading more!
Hello Pentrental! I am glad you found my post helpful and that you are considering Regal Assets and their gold IRA investor’s kit! Thank you for the feedback and the compliments, Pentrental!
You made a lot of good points on why it’s best to get a physical gold IRA. I’ve never really thought of gold as an investment, but this article has definitely peaked my interest. How is investing in gold compared to stocks? Is it as volatile? Or is it less riskier as with bonds?
Hello Jasmine! I would recommend investing in gold and precious metals over stocks or bonds. They are indeed less volatile and gold has also kept rising in value, particularly in the past 50 years, and it also never loses value because it has high perceived value (how it is viewed by people in general) and high intrinsic value. Thank you for the feedback and inquiries, Jasmine!
I always learn something new whenever I read your articles. I guess that’s what makes me always look for more. In all my years, I’m discovering for the first time that it can be disadvantageous to have in your possession, physical gold. Well, I didn’t exactly think of it. But for certain, these points makes a whole lot of sense. Particularly outstanding is that it is counter-intuitive to purchase and keep physical gold in your possession given the problems that is sure to arise from trying to liquidate it. Not to mention, even if you succeed, there’s not a chance you’d be liquidating it for a profit.
On the other hand, purchasing physical gold in a gold IRA is supposed to be the opposite of keeping it in your possession. With benefit ranging from safety to portability and having a tangible asset. phew
This has been really interesting and informative.
Thanks for sharing
Hello Rhain! I’m glad you found my article informative, you definitely seemed to have learned a lot! Thank you for the feedback and it’s always a pleasure to hear that you learned from my articles!
You have opened my eyes as to what buying physical gold entails and the downsides that will make people think twice before buying gold just to keep it in an IRA account. I think the right way to buy physical gold is to assume it will go up in value in the long term. Do you have gold investments?
Hello Jon! I do not personally have enough money to invest in gold right now but if I did I would definitely invest in a gold IRA through Regal Assets. Lord willing, if I save up enough money, I would do it. Thank you for the feedback and the inquiry, Jon!
I totally agree with the article you wrote about gold as a retirement asset. I personally also have a number of stocks that I keep for retirement. I have done this for years with a goal, I can retire comfortably. And I’m on your website because I’m looking for another asset (gold) as a diversified asset.
And the most interesting thing is you offer gold that the purchasing, do not need to be physically. Why? Because I think by buying physical gold, I have to bother to keep it, plus if we keep it in a bank in the form of a safe deposit box, then I have to pay a fee to rent it. And it could be, the fee that I have to pay is greater than the price of the gold increase itself. and if I want to leave this gold to my child as a legacy. However, the thought is whether the purchase of gold through the IRA, can be done in small quantities? suppose I want to buy 2.3 grams of gold.
Please help. Thanks
Hello Kylie! Unfortunately, most gold IRA companies have a minimum deposit amount. Our most recommended gold IRA company, Regal Assets has a minimum cash deposit amount of $5,000 and a minimum rollover (of a retirement plan like a Roth IRA or a 401k) amount of $10,000. That would be a lot more than 2 or 3 grams. Thank you for the feedback and the inquiry, Kylie!