In today’s CIA Success Story, we share a story about a Dad and Son who needed some financial advisement about the sale of a property. As you approach or get into the retirement years, it’s very important to start thinking ahead about what you want to do with your assets. Take a look at the story below and look for tips and hints that might help you if you’re faced with a similar situation.
The Question
Should we hold or sell our property?
The Scenario
Dad is in his eighties. He owned a business and sold it, but still owns the land. He and his son are now faced with a decision on whether to hold or sell the property.
How We Helped
While everyone’s personal and financial situation is different, we met with this dad and son to help them assess their options. If you’re faced with a similar scenario, sometimes you just need someone to take a fresh look at the numbers. In this case, Dad was leaning toward selling his property. His son wanted him to keep it. So we did a thorough review and explored his current assets. We also posed some questions and sought answers. Here’s a few questions you could ask yourself if you’re making a similar assessment:
1. How much money and/or assets do you currently have?
2. How long do you think the money you have can last at different rates of returns and different withdrawal rates?
3. If you sold the property now and added that money to your current assets, how long would it last?
Taking the Emotion Out of It
When you’re dealing with family, properties, and assets, it’s very easy to get emotional. In this case, we saw the son having some challenges. His Dad was comfortable with the fact that he was in his eighties and didn’t really want to wait any longer to sell a property only to make a little more money a few years from now. He figured, he could get more money but not be able to enjoy it for long. For his son, this was challenging to deal with. He didn’t want to think about what could or would happen with his father in the future. Assessing the situation objectively, and sometimes asking for the help of a third-party helps to take the emotion out of situations like this.
Paying Off Property
Paying off a house can be very similar decision that you have to make. You might say, “Boy, I’ll just sleep so good every night if my house is paid off.” Then you do the math with an advisor — and it turns out that’s not the perfect or optimal answer. We meet with clients faced with decisions like this all the time. When you’re in this situation, you cannot quantify emotions.
What happened with dad and son? Things closed out on a happy note. They came to a resolution on what they wanted to do and everyone was really happy — this is one of the rewards that makes our job….well, quite frankly, cool.
