HI Guys, very new to this but am looking to jump into some investments and want to make sure I have the best way of structuring. I have a SMSF with one commercial property in it. Do you think it is best to keep buying in the SMSF or structure a different way ie. personal name, property trust etc etc ??
I would appreciate your thoughts as I presume many of you with more experience have been through this sort of thing ?
Hey @rockypinball I would look to exhaust borrowing in personal names / trusts and then once you hit the borrowing ceiling look to continue investing with your SMSF.
This is not advice as I dont know your whole situation.
I don’t think anyone could answer your questions without a detailed analysis of your objectives, current super balance and investment strategy. If investing in Super – this will be Financial advice. In saying that, an analysis of your current assets and liabilities outside super as well as your borrowing capacity inside super – for instance is your current property leveraged? lots of pieces to the puzzle.
You should get some legal advice as there are many ways to structure this both inside super and outside. It might be advantageous to set up a second SMSF for example.
@rocky, obviously smsf has its advantages especially if you’re close to retirement or can access via transition to retirement. Its one way of keeping access to higher returns in a long retirement paying low tax. Issues may arise in later years when you’re subject to larger compulsory drawings and you may need to sell.
Scott has touched on an important point that a lot of investors who want to buy property in their SMSF don’t factor in/don’t realise they need to factor in – that when they retire there are minimum draw down requirements which get increasingly higher the older you reach. What this effectively means that unless you keep a reasonable portion of your SMSF in liquid assets, you can be forced to sell your properties to meet this requirement during your retirement.
With careful structuring from your financial adviser you can manage this requirement so you don’t have to be forced to sell what may be a great asset or something that you want to be passed down to the next generation.
This is an area we work with clients often, to ensure their retirements meet their long term plans, rather than get unwanted surprises.
This reply was modified 8 years ago by Corey Batt.
Thanks Corey. Sounds like a deal breaker for long term hold I reckon.hey Pitty, are you the guy that surfs?
It doesn’t necessarily have to be. By diversified mix of assets by the time you can retire, you could potentially just draw from the liquid assets within your fund (shares, cash etc), whilst holding the property indefinitely. A number of the SMSF lenders now require you to hold a % amount of your assets in liquid funds – ie shares or cash when applying for the loan which would help in this scenario, likewise over time as you grow your total funds.
But definitely you want to factor in how your SMSF will look over the long term – having just the single asset could lead to being forced to sell/other outcomes.