My wife and I are both in our 50’s and four years back needed to sell everything to sort out a
negative business issue. Since then we have been subjected to rental conditions, plus moving a couple of times chasing work.
My question for comment is this. As we now are at the financial stage to purchase property again, plus have been following with great interest Steve McKnights passage to investing (along with others), should we now go for investment property (assuming it is priced right, positioned right etc) or go for an income producing property on which we can live eg an orchard or similar, considering age and lack of wilingness by lenders to run past age 65? We do have agricultural experience[
Comments may not be relevant to individual circumstances. If you intend making any investment, financial or taxation decision you should consult a professional adviser.
dougdot,
property investment is essentially passive, and doesm’t involve physical input from you (unless DIY renovation). Living on the income-producing propoerty e.g. an orchard and doing the work yourself might suit you now, but in 10yrs time will you still want to hop on the tractor at 6am? What if you develop health issues/injuries? Would the property still provide an income (sub-lease?).
Being of a similar age, I’m looking at passive incomes!
Terry
dougdot,
another way of looking at a strategy: if you work 50hrs per week in fruitgrowing what will the annual return be on that 2500hrs work?
If you worked 50hrs per week on property investing what will be your annual return?
Terry
Hi Dougdot – don’t write off the income-producing property idea. As well as our rental properties, we have a small mango farm but employ a manager to look after it. We helped pick some of the crop yesterday. It was very satisfying pulling ripe fruit off the trees although I wouldn’t want to do it for a living! A fruit orchard is probably one of the easier types of farming…don’t buy a dairy, whatever you do!
Cheers
Shirley
Some lenders will want to see that you will have >70% equity in your PPOR at age 65, but provided you have sufficient superannuation funds or possibly verifiable income from the property (never tested that one myself) then you may be able to waive this requirement.
Good luck – my partner and I dream of owning a little orchard somewhere in the sunshine coast hinterland one day too, but still enjoying inner city too much at the mo’. [^] Cherries, peaches and avocados are personal favourites – not so keen on mango sap and you can’t wear the little plastic gloves because then you spread the sap and ruin the mango skins. Then of course there’s wine … dangerous! I couldn’t have animals, they’d all end up pets.