stock swap for real estate to avoid capitol gains tax

nope not as far as i know..

You still need to pull ur money out either way..

If it was thru a 401K or something perhaps,

I was going to say 401k if you have enough funds because you pay yourself back and you dont get dinged for the taxes if I remember correctly...

There are provisions for real estate with 401k funds. Not sure if you have to be a first time buyer or if you have to be facing foreclosure or what the limits are.

What MR T is talking about is a loan on a 401k which you can do for any reason. Most places allow you to take a loan up to 50% of your 401k value not to go over $50,000. Most firms allow you to take a 5 year loan, very few firms allow you to take a 10 year loan for real estate purposes so look into it.

Typically you have to pay a small loan processing fee (typically $100) and you have to pay yourself back with interest. Most firms assess interest as being something along the lines of the Prime Rate as reported in the wall street journal plus 1 or 2 percentage points above that.

Here's the catch. If you stop working at the place your 401k is at.... the loan becomes due and if you don't have enough to cover then it counts as a distribution. This however may not be so bad if your income tax bracket is low because its possible the taxation rules on the 401k distribution will be less than a capital gains tax on non-qualified funds.

You still need to pay taxes on taking out the 401k. Just not penalty.

No.

A few years ago I read a book on using real estate as your IRA. It's a complicated set up, including starting an LLC (IIRC), attorneys, etc, etc. I found the book in the library, just google variations on "REAL ESTATE AS AN IRA" and I'm sure you'll find the info.

I walked away with the idea if you have a ton of properties, it would be worth the headache. Hope this helps.