Is Now a Bad Time to Retire?
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    HOUSE MEDIAN ASKING PRICES AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $1,526,212 (+1.41%)       Melbourne $950,600 (-0.81%)       Brisbane $848,079 (+0.39%)       Adelaide $783,680 (+0.69%)       Perth $722,301 (+0.42%)       Hobart $727,777 (-0.40%)       Darwin $644,340 (-0.88%)       Canberra $873,193 (-2.75%)       National $960,316 (+0.31%)                UNIT MEDIAN ASKING PRICES AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $711,149 (+0.79%)       Melbourne $480,050 (-0.07%)       Brisbane $471,869 (+1.52%)       Adelaide $395,455 (-0.79%)       Perth $396,215 (+0.44%)       Hobart $535,914 (-1.67%)       Darwin $365,715 (+0.11%)       Canberra $487,485 (+1.06%)       National $502,310 (+0.25%)                HOUSES FOR SALE AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 8,985 (+170)       Melbourne 11,869 (-124)       Brisbane 8,074 (+47)       Adelaide 2,298 (-22)       Perth 6,070 (+20)       Hobart 993 (+24)       Darwin 282 (-4)       Canberra 809 (+43)       National 39,380 (+154)                UNITS FOR SALE AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 7,927 (+125)       Melbourne 6,997 (+50)       Brisbane 1,822 (+3)       Adelaide 488 (+5)       Perth 1,915 (-1)       Hobart 151 (+3)       Darwin 391 (-9)       Canberra 680 (+5)       National 20,371 (+181)                HOUSE MEDIAN ASKING RENTS AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $750 (-$20)       Melbourne $580 ($0)       Brisbane $590 (+$10)       Adelaide $570 (-$5)       Perth $600 ($0)       Hobart $550 ($0)       Darwin $700 (+$5)       Canberra $670 (+$10)       National $633 (-$1)                    UNIT MEDIAN ASKING RENTS AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney $700 (-$20)       Melbourne $558 (+$8)       Brisbane $590 ($0)       Adelaide $458 (-$3)       Perth $550 ($0)       Hobart $450 ($0)       Darwin $550 ($0)       Canberra $540 (-$10)       National $559 (-$4)                HOUSES FOR RENT AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 5,224 (-134)       Melbourne 5,097 (+90)       Brisbane 3,713 (-84)       Adelaide 1,027 (-3)       Perth 1,568 (-46)       Hobart 471 (-3)       Darwin 127 (+13)       Canberra 658 (-32)       National 17,885 (-199)                UNITS FOR RENT AND WEEKLY CHANGE     Sydney 8,171 (-343)       Melbourne 5,447 (-170)       Brisbane 1,682 (-22)       Adelaide 329 (+3)       Perth 561 (-11)       Hobart 159 (-6)       Darwin 176 (+16)       Canberra 597 (-12)       National 17,122 (-545)                HOUSE ANNUAL GROSS YIELDS AND TREND         Sydney 2.56% (↓)       Melbourne 3.17% (↓)     Brisbane 3.62% (↑)        Adelaide 3.78% (↓)       Perth 4.32% (↓)     Hobart 3.93% (↑)      Darwin 5.65% (↑)      Canberra 3.99% (↑)        National 3.43% (↓)            UNIT ANNUAL GROSS YIELDS AND TREND         Sydney 5.12% (↓)       Melbourne 6.04% (↓)       Brisbane 6.50% (↓)     Adelaide 6.02% (↑)        Perth 7.22% (↓)     Hobart 4.37% (↑)      Darwin 7.82% (↑)        Canberra 5.76% (↓)       National 5.79% (↓)            HOUSE RENTAL VACANCY RATES AND TREND       Sydney 1.0% (↑)      Melbourne 0.7% (↑)      Brisbane 0.8% (↑)      Adelaide 0.4% (↑)        Perth 0.4% (↓)       Hobart 1.2% (↓)     Darwin 0.5% (↑)      Canberra 1.5% (↑)      National 0.8% (↑)             UNIT RENTAL VACANCY RATES AND TREND         Sydney 1.3% (↓)     Melbourne 1.6% (↑)      Brisbane 0.9% (↑)      Adelaide 0.5% (↑)      Perth 0.7% (↑)      Hobart 2.2% 2.0% (↑)      Darwin 1.0% (↑)        Canberra 1.7% (↓)     National 1.3% (↑)             AVERAGE DAYS TO SELL HOUSES AND TREND       Sydney 27.0 (↑)        Melbourne 28.3 (↓)     Brisbane 32.3 (↑)      Adelaide 26.3 (↑)      Perth 34.9 (↑)        Hobart 33.4 (↓)     Darwin 48.7 (↑)        Canberra 27.6 (↓)     National 32.3 (↑)             AVERAGE DAYS TO SELL UNITS AND TREND         Sydney 27.0 (↓)       Melbourne 29.0 (↓)     Brisbane 33.0 (↑)        Adelaide 27.5 (↓)     Perth 38.2 (↑)      Hobart 33.4 (↑)      Darwin 48.3 (↑)      Canberra 33.2 (↑)      National 33.7 (↑)            
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Is Now a Bad Time to Retire?

Research shows how those who retire during bear markets can still preserve their nest eggs.

By ANNE TERGESEN
Wed, Aug 31, 2022 9:52amGrey Clock 4 min

Retiring during a market downturn and soaring inflation can feel like sailing into the wind instead of the sunset.

The market’s performance in the first few years of retirement can have a big impact on how long a nest egg lasts, partly because losses take a bigger bite out of a portfolio when it is typically at its largest, advisers and economists say.

Of course, it isn’t always possible to time your retirement to coincide with a bull market.

But those nearing retirement right now can take some comfort in research that shows that even people who retired in the worst time to do so since 1926 would have made their money last 30 years by sticking to certain rules. As the stories of the four retirees The Wall Street Journal profiled this week show, even those who retired in 2008 have done fine provided they managed their money well.

Negative returns at the start of retirement, when a portfolio is usually largest, create a problem because the combination of market losses and withdrawals can leave a portfolio too depleted to last decades.

“The five years after retirement are a pivotal period for determining a sustainable lifestyle in retirement,” said Wade Pfau, a professor at the American College of Financial Services in King of Prussia, Pa., and author of “Retirement Planning Guidebook.”

Consider a 62-year-old who retired on Jan. 1 with $1 million and is following the 4% rule to determine how much to spend in retirement. (Such an approach, which has been questioned recently, calls for spending 4% of a balance in the first year of retirement and adjusting that amount in subsequent years to account for inflation.)

After taking the first annual withdrawal of 4%, or $40,000, the investor would have $960,000 left. With a 15% loss in the first year, the balance would fall to $816,000. Two more years of similar withdrawals and 15% losses would leave about $527,000 to last potentially for decades.

By contrast, a 62-year-old who retires with $1 million and experiences 15% annual gains would have about $1.36 million after three years of $40,000 withdrawals.

Despite the market’s importance in early retirement, history shows that the portfolios of people who retire in down markets can recover.

Thanks to the long bull market and low inflation that followed the financial crisis of 2008, someone with 50% in stocks who retired with $1 million on Jan. 1, 2007, and spent $40,000, adjusted annually for inflation, would have had about $874,000 left after two years, but would have about $1.63 million today.

“As long as you didn’t panic and sell your stocks in 2008 you’d be doing fine today,” said Mr. Pfau, who crunched the numbers for a portfolio with 50% in U.S. large-cap stocks and 50% in intermediate-term U.S. government bonds.

Another lesson for retirees contending with losses is to cut spending if possible, since “if you’re overspending from a portfolio that is simultaneously dwindling, that just leaves less in place to repair itself when the markets eventually recover,” said Christine Benz, director of personal finance at Morningstar Inc.

The worst 30-year period in which to retire began in the late 1960s. Those who retired then were clobbered with back-to-back bear markets that started around 1969 and 1973, plus years of high inflation. These factors caused many to drain their nest eggs faster than they would have otherwise, although many in that era were able to fall back to some extent on traditional pension benefits.

If markets slide and inflation remains high for the next couple of years, as some economists have predicted, Mr. Pfau said it could create “the perfect storm,” leaving investors with a choice between withdrawing more from a shrinking portfolio or cutting spending to try to protect their nest eggs even as prices rise.

Here are steps retirees can take to improve their odds of making their money last:

Cut spending when markets decline

The 4% rule would have protected retirees from running out of money even in the worst 30 year period since 1926 in which to retire, which turned out to be from 1966 to 1995, according to Mr. Pfau.

For current retirees, Mr. Pfau recommends forgoing inflation adjustments following any year in which your portfolio incurs losses.

“A very small change in spending can have a dramatic effect,” said Mr. Pfau.

For example, someone who retired in 1966 and stuck to the 4% rule would have run out of money after 30 years. But by spending 3.8% to start instead, the investor would have preserved most of his or her original nest egg by year 30, he said.

Manage volatility

People entering retirement often have 40% to 60% or more in stocks to help their nest eggs grow.

A 2014 study by researchers including Mr. Pfau finds that those who start retirement by reducing their stockholdings to 20% to 30% of their portfolio and then gradually push it back up to 50% to 70% in stocks have the highest probability of making their money last 30 years using the 4% spending rule.

Those who take a different approach, tapering stockholdings from 60% to 30%, are likely to run out of money after 28 years in the worst-case scenarios, according to the research.

That said, the conventional approach of starting retirement with more in stocks and reducing that exposure over time comes out ahead if stocks fare well in the early years of retirement. But reducing stock market exposure up front provides better downside protection in those early years, when retirees are most vulnerable to financial losses, says Mr. Pfau.

Use other assets

When markets decline, rather than sell stocks at a loss, retirees with whole life insurance may be able to withdraw from their policies to meet living expenses. Another option is to tap home equity with a reverse mortgage line-of-credit. There can be downsides, including high fees on reverse mortgages, so weigh the pros and cons carefully, Mr. Pfau said.

Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: August 30, 2022.



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First, the good news for office landlords: A post-Labor Day bump nudged return-to-office rates in mid-September to their highest level since the onset of the pandemic.

Now the bad: Office attendance in big cities is still barely half of what it was in 2019, and company get-tough measures are proving largely ineffective at boosting that rate much higher.

Indeed, a number of forces—from the prospect of more Covid-19 cases in the fall to a weakening economy—could push the return rate into reverse, property owners and city officials say.

More than before, chief executives at blue-chip companies are stepping up efforts to fill their workspace. Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Amazon and JPMorgan Chase are among the companies that have recently vowed to get tougher on employees who don’t show upIn August, Meta told employees they could face disciplinary action if they regularly violate new workplace rules.

But these actions haven’t yet moved the national return rate needle much, and a majority of companies remain content to allow employees to work at least part-time remotely despite the tough talk.

Most employees go into offices during the middle of the week, but floors are sparsely populated on Mondays and Fridays. In Chicago, some September days had a return rate of over 66%. But it was below 30% on Fridays. In New York, it ranges from about 25% to 65%, according to Kastle Systems, which tracks security-card swipes.

Overall, the average return rate in the 10 U.S. cities tracked by Kastle Systems matched the recent high of 50.4% of 2019 levels for the week ended Sept. 20, though it slid a little below half the following week.

The disappointing return rates are another blow to office owners who are struggling with vacancy rates near record highs. The national office average vacancy rose to 19.2% last quarter, just below the historical peak of 19.3% in 1991, according to Moody’s Analytics preliminary third-quarter data.

Business leaders in New York, Detroit, Seattle, Atlanta and Houston interviewed by The Wall Street Journal said they have seen only slight improvements in sidewalk activity and attendance in office buildings since Labor Day.

“It feels a little fuller but at the margins,” said Sandy Baruah, chief executive of the Detroit Regional Chamber, a business group.

Lax enforcement of return-to-office rules is one reason employees feel they can still work from home. At a roundtable business discussion in Houston last week, only one of the 12 companies that attended said it would enforce a return-to-office policy in performance reviews.

“It was clearly a minority opinion that the others shook their heads at,” said Kris Larson, chief executive of Central Houston Inc., a group that promotes business in the city and sponsored the meeting.

Making matters worse, business leaders and city officials say they see more forces at work that could slow the return to office than those that could accelerate it.

Covid-19 cases are up and will likely increase further in the fall and winter months. “If we have to go back to distancing and mask protocols, that really breaks the office culture,” said Kathryn Wylde, head of the business group Partnership for New York City.

Many cities are contending with an increase in homelessness and crime. San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., which are struggling with these problems, are among the lowest return-to-office cities in the Kastle System index.

About 90% of members surveyed by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce said that the city couldn’t recover until homelessness and public safety problems were addressed, said Rachel Smith, chief executive. That is taken into account as companies make decisions about returning to the office and how much space they need, she added.

Cuts in government services and transportation are also taking a toll. Wait times for buses run by Houston’s Park & Ride system, one of the most widely used commuter services, have increased partly because of labor shortages, according to Larson of Central Houston.

The commute “is the remaining most significant barrier” to improving return to office, Larson said.

Some landlords say that businesses will have more leverage in enforcing return-to-office mandates if the economy weakens. There are already signs of such a shift in cities that depend heavily on the technology sector, which has been seeing slowing growth and layoffs.

But a full-fledged recession could hurt office returns if it results in widespread layoffs. “Maybe you get some relief in more employees coming back,” said Dylan Burzinski, an analyst with real-estate analytics firm Green Street. “But if there are fewer of those employees, it’s still a net negative for office.”

The sluggish return-to-office rate is leading many city and business leaders to ask the federal government for help. A group from the Great Lakes Metro Chambers Coalition recently met with elected officials in Washington, D.C., lobbying for incentives for businesses that make commitments to U.S. downtowns.

Baruah, from the Detroit chamber, was among the group. He said the chances of such legislation being passed were low. “We might have to reach crisis proportions first,” he said. “But we’re trying to lay the groundwork now.”

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