My husband has money sitting in a retirement plan that was mandatory at his old job. It's been pulling in a whopping 4%/year. Thanks to all of you convincing him that (I was right and) he shouldn't close the account, take the penalty and use the money for a small remaining CC debt, we plan to roll the money into a traditional IRA and invest it a little more aggressively, since we have more than 30 years to retirement. With his new job we will also be moving and we are discussing buying a house in the next 3-5 years. (Hopefully sooner but thats an argument for another day)

My question- I know you can borrow from an IRA for a qualified first time home purchase after 5 years. Will rolling over the money start the clock over again? Or is the account considered as old as it's earliest contribution? The old account is more than 5 years old but is Not a traditional IRA or 401k and I don't believe we can withdraw from it at all without penalty, except to roll it out to another account.

Thanks!
Goodjoan