Is $60kPA really enough to retire comfortably?

Absolutely

...and if investors had to sell during this period? Margin call ouch
Same with property

If it aint broken dont fix it What works

 

Appreciate your comments. I really have investigated over the years which way to invest works best for me and I keep coming back to real estate, choosing to be a highly active, adding value investor. Everyone has a certain natural skillset I believe, and mine is definitely more inline with the wheeling and dealing of bricks and mortar

 

Oh no I can feel it coming on, it’s taking over me again:

 

LOL.

 

@MTR you speak of timing and knowing when to hold and when to fold depending on what’s happening on the ground so to speak.

From March 2003 to October 2007 the Australian sharemarket went from 2744 to 6750 points. Which translates to 22.14% growth per year for 4.5 years excluding dividends. Now if median price of property increased by over 22% every year for 4.5 years what would you be doing? Commonsense should prevail and it was obvious the market was overheated and people should be very cautious buying. But instead people were buying with margin loans at very high LVR and when the eventual correction came they suffered huge losses.

I don’t think you would be keen to do any developments in Sydney now but if you still do and the market turns around can you blame the property market as being risky investment?

People complain about sharemarkets being highly volatile as one of its negatives. I on the other hand think of it as a positive. Because of the volatility you can occasionally buy assets for 20-50% discount. I have always loved bargains when I go shopping anytime and the sharemarkets is no different.

Cheers
Oracle

 

Sounds like its working for you, that's great. Not everyone can achieve this.

 

The other thing about risk is the investor themselves makes up a large part of it. For an experienced RE investor buying an ip in X location might be 5-10 times less risky than if Joe Blow buys in the same area. Same thing with shares, what's less risky for 1 person to do may be alot riskier for the next.

my 2 cents.

 

Hey @oracle are you still investing in direct shares also or only just LICs / ETFs? I’ve been progressively selling our direct shares and proceeds going into the LICs / ETFs. Preferring simplicity as I get older. In hindsight I wouldn’t have bothered with direct shares knowing what I do now.

 

So many things I wouldn't have done "knowing what I know now"!

 

There are days when I feel strongly about direct shares due to keen interest but some days I feel strongly about LIC/ETF and keeping it all simple not just for me but for my wife and kid. As age catches up I can see the benefit in keeping things simple and passive. Long term studies have proven it's very difficult to keep outperforming so is it worth the effort especially when working full time in a day job?

Majority of portfolio is already in ETF/LIC. I have few direct shares but like you will gradually sell them to buy probably international ETF and diversify. I feel diversified portfolio (with international shares) would be good for my SANF.

Sometimes its best to learn your lessons by being there and doing it and learning from it. Had you not invested in direct shares you would have always wondered what if I went down direct share route my returns would be even better and you could have changed strategy at wrong time and suffered even larger losses or lose your SANF. Just be contend that direct shares route tought you some important lessons in investing which you cannot put a price on.

Cheers,
Oracle.

 

By choice? By advice/sought alternatives (accountant)? Withdrawn and deployed elsewhere? Self-employed? Wasn't employed for the last 30 odd years? Dodgy employer? Bad advice/poor fund?

 

Must admit also the exposure to International equities helps my SANF. It’s really just an “insurance” thing for me rather than looking for growth etc. Something I’d rather not have but just part of the risk management strategy in case of “what if”.

He he I’m sure you know by my posts that if there’s a mistake to be made or hard way of doing things I’ve done most. I couldn’t be told unfortunately, I seemed intent on inflicting pain on myself. But you certainly learn from this. Pretty good nowadays as a result of past experiences and ended up very nicely in retirement. Better to have made the mistakes earlier on whilst I had time on my side that’s for sure.

 

Passively manage but aggressively chase deals?

 

I have a total of $700 in Super. It was around $1500 at one time, but the fees keep eating it away.

I haven't worked full time since I had the kids, so close to 30 odd years. I've done a bit of part-time/casual over the years. They don't all pay Super. If you earn under a certain amount, they don't have to. Other than that, I've been self employed.

Hubby has a small amount of Super, but we were self employed for many years before he started working in the City. He's got around 15 years of Super, so not much at all.

 

for people who are thinking about buying individual company shares VS ETF/LIC.. all i can say is this quote from the founder of vanguard (i think) : "why search for a needle in a haystack when you can just buy the haystack".

having said that i am 50-50 between buying a company and etfs.

 

I think I'd need roughly 50 different stocks if buying directly to feel comfortable enough from a diversification perspective, and would need to continually monitor the portfolio going forward. Happy to outsource all that stress for 0.11~0.16% in fees.