Tag Archives: Keith Baker

Multifamilies for Retirement Income

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photo by Laurent Montaron

Financial Advisor quoted me in More Retirees Turning To Multifamily Homes For Income. It opens,

Many clients are investing in multifamily residences as a way to generate retirement income.

“A common way for people nearing retirement is to buy a triplex or fourplex, live in one unit and rent out the others,” said Keith Baker, a financial advisor and professor of mortgage banking at North Lake College in Irving, Texas. “They sell their home and use the equity they have built up to do this, and if they still owe some debt, it will be paid down more quickly.” Among the best multifamily properties to acquire for supplemental income is one that has separate entrances with no shared common areas so that each family has their own space, according to Michael Foguth, a financial advisor in Brighton, Michigan.

“Townhomes are very popular,” Foguth told Financial Advisor. “Also popular are duplexes where you have one unit on the ground level and one unit on the second level.”

But clients should not spend so much money to acquire a property that their retirement income ends up undiversified. “If the bulk of your retirement income is tied up in one property, you are exposed to natural disasters like floods as well as economic downturns in that market,” said David Reiss, a professor at Brooklyn Law School who teaches real estate finance.

An alternative to buying a property is modifying an existing residence with the intent of renting out rooms on websites like AirBnB or HomeAway. “You would need to make sure that deed restrictions, zoning and city ordinances allow this,” Baker said. “It also will require property insurance and additional liability coverage.”

When a multifamily rental property is also a primary residence, a portion of the mortgage is tax deductible, according to Carla Dearing, CEO of SUM180, an online financial planning service. There may also be the opportunity to leverage tax benefits like depreciation.

“Selling your home and taking out a loan on a rental four-unit apartment complex allows you to deduct from your income the pro-rated interest expense along with the depreciation expense of the portion of the units you don’t live in so that much of the income is sheltered,” Baker said.

Over time, the income support received from a rental property can be greater than the interest income from investing in the stock market. “You’re likely to receive a nice stream of income when you are renting to people with guaranteed incomes,” said James Brewer, CFP, in Chicago. Nationally, the average price-to-rent ratio is 11.5, meaning that the average property owner is buying a property for a price of 11.5 years worth of rent, which is an estimated 8.7 percent yield on her investment, according to data from Zillow.

A house that cost $200,000 should bring in $1,450 per month in rent using the national price-to-rent average, according to Matt Hylland, an investment advisor with Hylland Capital Management in Virginia Beach. That’s compared to 10-year government bonds, which yield 1.7 percent and the S&P 500 index, which yields about 2 percent.

“But this 8.7 percent is before any costs,” Hylland noted. In other words, clients who add rental property to their portfolios should also add cash to their emergency funds so that have money on hand to maintain and repair the house. “If the roof needs replacing, do you have $5,000 available to fix it?” asks Hylland.

Ideally, a multifamily acquisition will be move-in ready. “Homes that require construction or renovation can easily turn into a money pit, costing twice what you estimate up front,” Dearing said.

Buying A Home After Retirement

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HSH.com quoted me in Buying A Home After Retirement Is Possible, but Challenging. It reads, in part,

The ideal situation is to enter your retirement years without any monthly mortgage payments. But what if you’ve finally found your dream home at the same time that you’re leaving the working world? What if you’re ready to buy a home in a new city in which you’ve always wanted to live, but you’re approaching your 70th birthday?

The good news is that the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act law prohibits lenders from denying potential borrowers because of their age. The bad news is that you’ll have a mortgage payment and the burden of caring for a house in your retirement years.

“It can be bad to have a mortgage payment in your 80s,” says Keith Baker, professor of mortgage banking at North Lake College in Irving, Texas. “All sorts of things can happen to you, unfortunately. What if you develop Alzheimer’s? What if your children aren’t financially sophisticated and can’t take over handling your mortgage for you? There are all kinds of reasons not to have a mortgage when you’re that age. But if you can afford a mortgage payment when you’re in your 60s and early 70s and you’re in good health, why not buy that home that you’ve always wanted?”

If you want to buy a home after you’ve retired, you’ll need to first consider several factors, and you’ll need to overcome a variety of hurdles both to qualify for a mortgage loan and to find a home that fits your changing needs as you get older.

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Many borrowers apply for 30-year loans because they generally come with the lowest monthly payments. But such a long-term loan might not make sense for borrowers who are already in their retirement years, says David Reiss, professor of law and research director for the Center for Urban Business Entrepreneurship at Brooklyn Law School in New York City.

“If you are 62, you will not have paid [the loan] off until you are 92,” says Reiss. “Retirees should look at their expected incomes over those 30 years to ensure that they have sufficient income to cover the mortgage over the whole period.”

Income can fluctuate during the retirement years. Maybe payments from a legal settlement run out. You might struggle to find renters for your investment properties. Royalties can dwindle. At the same time, expenses — especially medical ones — might rise.

Reiss says that it makes sense for retirees to take out a loan with a shorter term, such as a 15-year fixed-rate loan, if they can afford the higher monthly payments that come with such loans.

Reiss on Buying a Home

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Mainstreet.com quoted me in Potential Homeowners Should Seek Counseling Before Making First Purchase. It reads, in part,

Many consumers have made buying their first home less of a daunting task by seeking housing counseling from a non-profit organization.

In 2014, more than 73,000 people received housing counseling from the National Foundation for Credit Counseling’s member agencies, making it the highest volume experienced during the past five years. The renewed interest in housing counseling could be an indicator that many people are considering home ownership as an affordable option.

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Homeowners should look at a range of mortgages before committing to one since the typical American homeowner moves every seven years, said David Reiss, professor of law at the Brooklyn Law School in N.Y. For example, obtaining a “relatively expensive 30-year fixed rate mortgage may not make sense,” he said, if you can save a lot in monthly payments with an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM).

ARMs have a certain period of time where the interest rate remains the same, such as 84 months for a 7/1 ARM or 120 months for a 10/1 ARM and then it adjusts each year for the remainder of the mortgage.

“This might be particularly true for very young households or for empty nesters, both of whom may have different needs in five or ten years,” Reiss said. “It is hard to predict where interest rates and prices are going, so holding off on buying when it seems like the right time to do so for your personal situation is risky.”