How This Engineer Left His W-2 to Travel the World

After a 15-year career as a computer engineer in the defense industry, Harley Green and his wife built a private lending business that now lets their family live as full-time international nomads—recording this episode from Lima, Peru, with their kids having visited 20+ countries across six continents.

In this episode of Rocket Your Dollar, Harley breaks down how he uses a self-directed IRA to "be the bank," funding fix-and-flip investors with first-position, real estate-backed loans that have averaged just over 15% annualized returns—without ever owning, renovating, or managing a property himself.

What we get into:

• How Harley went from house hacking his basement to condos, short-term rentals, RV parks, and finally settling on private lending as his favorite asset class
• Why first-position loans are the core of the strategy—and how a second-position loan can be "almost like zero position" when a deal goes sideways
• The real reason private lending fits a self-directed IRA so well (interest income taxed at ordinary rates lands in the right vehicle)
• How his platform's model works: personal capital funds each deal first, then co-lenders pick specific loans through a portal, $50K minimum, no accreditation required
• A hard-earned lesson on loan documents
• The bigger picture: nearly $20 trillion sitting in IRAs, a starter-home affordability crisis, and how private lenders help put livable homes back on the market