Comments on: What Are the Best Investments for Retirement Income?

By: yorick

yorick — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 11:14:34 +0000

High-yield dividends, and MLPs, is a combination for a retirement income portfolio that I have seen kicked around. How well that works is up for – spirited – debate. You’d have a growth portfolio on the side, as well, for “incidental” spending.

I am skeptical about using a “balanced portfolio” as an income portfolio. Is the intent to draw down on principal? I’d rather not plan to live until 95 and reach $0, and then actually live until 95 and be out of money.

Rental is a good option, if one can stand the hassle, or factors “people to take the hassle” into the equation. You’ll deal with your fair share of unpleasant renters, and the more rental properties (income), the more of those unpleasant renters. That can be handled by a rental property management service, and maybe another service taking care of legal. Those will diminish profit – if cash flow is not firmly positive after taking those management services into account, don’t jump.

The last thing I want to do in retirement is battle with unruly renters. Doing it myself is plain out. It also doesn’t scale to 3, 4, “more” properties.

College towns sound like a good place to set up if the property prices are right. Lots of potential renters that move in and out. Deposits cover the necessary repairs caused by renting to students.

On that topic, what are the “some parts of the country” that you have found to be good spots for owning rental property?

By: DIY Investor

DIY Investor — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 20:38:20 +0000

On 6/25 when I wrote my post DVY (a dividend ETF) was priced at $43.07. Today it is $50.22. The dividend yield is 3.50%. Total return over this 7 month period was approx. 2% yield and 16.6% price appreciation or over 18% for less than a year.
Sell it, hold it, do what you want – a good investment no matter how you look at it. I’m holding it because I still like the yield and I think it could go higher.
I meant “reap” the economic recovery which was obviously occurring – not to sell the dividend ETF or dividend stocks.
It seems that sometimes it is easier than others to buy these stocks and ETFs. Back in June was one.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 03:56:03 +0000

I like those two. I would add intermediate corporate bonds and high yielding ETF’s.

By: Financial Samurai

Financial Samurai — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 14:28:00 +0000

Real estate is a no brainer now if you have the patience. The Rentalyields now are way above borrowing costs!

By: DIY Investor

DIY Investor — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:44:23 +0000

How about some nice high dividend stocks via an exchange traded fund. With a longer term perspective you can collect the dividends (qualified by the way and therefore low taxes) and reap the recovery in prices when the market recovers.
For those who buy individual stocks there are blogs that do some nice analysis on stocks that have increased their dividends over longer perioods.