I have a house which I bought in 1999 and we are staying in the house

I have one son who will be completing his Uni this year, however we thinking he should continue to do his Master after he gets his degree before he starts working so thats another 2 years.

Recently I inherited some money.

I was thinking perhaps I invest in a condo in my sons name and pay the deposit and service the interest to the bank now until my son starts working and he can continue paying for the condo. It is either as an investment or to stay, its for him to decide later.

Both my husband and I are in mid 50s. We are still servicing the current house loan to the bank.

I am thinking, should I buy the condo ? It will be additional financial commitment for me.
We already have a house, which eventually will go to my son, after us he can sell this house and buy a new house .

The inheritance money, I should perhaps invest in something that can give fast returns e.g share market etc, so I could increase the money, so when both my husband and I retire we can have funds for our expenses and dont depend on my son.

I am little confused on what to do .

Can some one advice the best thing to do .

From my understanding, you inherited money. Is it sufficient to cover the entire purchase or just place deposit?

Are you aware that if you retire without any pension/passive income, how are you going to service the loan?

What are you going to do with the condo? Rent it? If you don't have tenants, you still have to pay maintenance fee, insurance etc. Buying condos from problematic developers is also a risk.

Also, your son should only by a property once he is engaged or married. Because sometimes his spouse may not like that particular location (due to work or family issue)

You are almost at retirement age. This inheritance money is not to be gambled in the stock market. Worse is you lose everything overnight. I have a family member who burnt RM1+ million of their retirement savings+inheritance money in the stock market after investing in stocks 'recommended' by 'friends'.

If the inheritance money is substantial, go seek a certified financial advisor. They will know what to do based on your risk profile. Most likely they will recommend a bond portfolio.

If you are in your mid 50s, assuming 55, you will have issues getting a mortgage of more than 15 years.

Are you sure your son needs a Masters without any working experience after his Bachelors? There are VERY few fields where this is actually helpful.

Many parents do buy properties for their children. The issue you will have at this stage is you won't be able to use his age to lengthen the term and the monthly repayment could be expensive as he doesn't have any income.

I would suggest you use the inheritance money to pay off your existing housing loan and while you are still in employment use what you would be saving from the lack of mortgage payment to invest into stocks and shares or something income generating for your retirement.

1. Never buy properties for your children and give everything to them. Only give in the will. Why is this? This is to prevent them from kicking you out when you are old. If they kick you out, you have no roof over your head. Do you want to spend your old age sleeping under a bridge? Yes is ad to hear but a safety precaution is better than none.

2. Do you have the money to pay off once you stop working? If yes where is the money coming from? Is it drawdown from your EPF? If you are paying your house + condo using your EPF money, good luck then as after you have exhaust your EPF money I do not know how you are going to survive

3. Do you know what you are buying in the stock market? Is a jungle out there. The market is not your parents. Is consist of people who is trying to make money out of each other and that includes from you. What's your investment style?

Let’s get your data right :

1. Both you and your husband are in mid-50s
2. Both still working
3. Current dwelling still serving bank loan (how many years left ?)
4. Have a only son graduating this year, but intend to continue with masters. Expect to graduate in 2 more years
5. Inherited some money recently. Thinking to do something with it.
6. Two option :
A. buy a condo using inheritance money (money large enough as deposit for condo (still need bank loan), but not large enough to pay in full). Will increase commitment until son take over the bank loan
B. Invest in something else like stock market for retirement

Apparently it is the inheritance money that cause you seek advice. Inheritance is a blessing actually. It allows you to improve your financial position. However, the blessing turns into confusion. From my understanding, this confusion appears only because you put your son into the parameters.

Take a step back. If your son is not in the equation, things will be much clearer.

In my opinion, plan your retirement without taking into account your son’s future first. Take care of you and your husband and make your financial decision with only two of you in mind. When there are less parameters to consider, financial decision will be easier and most of the time will be better

In the end, a better financial decision will also benefit your son.

I am a parent with all my kids graduated and working. So I know how you feel. As a parent, we can’t help to give the best to our children. Most of the time, we think of their future more than our own. We want them to be happy and one of the way is to give them a head start financially. In your case, buy a house for him even before he start work.

However, it may not be a good thing to over help them. Let’s them face financial reality may be a better life development. Only when he tasted bitter pill will he appreciate the value of money. That will make him a better person

Therefore, I would think that plan your inheritance with only you and your husband in mind. And that is the best planning for your son. After all, like you, your son also wants his parents to be happy

This post has been edited by Showtime747: Jun 15 2019, 08:46 AM

If ts's son is excel in his field, he could be working in sg, hk, London or SF. Buying a house for him now will only limit his job mobility.

Current property overhang will take a number of years to reduce substantially mean price will remain suppressed. It won't be too late to buy later.

Suggest to use the inheritance to pay off home loan.

This post has been edited by icemanfx: Jun 15 2019, 10:27 AM

Thank You everyone for all your reply and valuable reply. It really gives a bigger picture of the whole situation.

I personally had a very difficult financial situation when my husband borrowed money from some people and we spent years struggling to overcome this and when my husband reached 55, he took his EPF money to pay off all the loan. The suffering due to my husband mistake caused lots of mental trauma and problems.

I dont want my son to suffer due to financial constraints in his life as it really is a trauma.

i have been trading stocks for sometime, i am not an impulsive trader and are cautious and have been educating myself on stock market and only trade with disposal income. I do my own research and trade. I do make some profit and minimize the loss.


I will reconsider the purchase of the condo. It was very attractive offer as its in Bangsar and was a good prospect since the HOC campaign is going on. The developer is well known one.

I was also thinking with the salary scale for graduates now, beside having PTPTN loan to pay, will be able to afford to pay for the condo.

I do have to think about me and my husbands future too as we dont want to depend on my son too much financially.

Thank You again everyone for the valuable inputs

You mean the condo is in Bangsar South or Pantai side of Bangsar right?

As far as I know there isn't any new condos with a proper Bangsar address let alone one that will have HOC.

Property sounds like a good idea. But paying the loan it will take sometime for your son to be able to do so.

Talking about property, condo are really some commitment as you need to pay the maintenance every month. Further more the older the condo or the poorer the maintenance, the condo price may possibly drop. Unless the other wise. Unless its a good location which allows you to rent it out long term until ur son comes to age to manage the property.

My opinion is, keep the money enough for a downpayment (in the future value)until ur son is ready to getting his first property. Maybe invest it somewhere like REITs?

This post has been edited by knight: Jun 15 2019, 11:57 PM

Its Pantai Side of Bangsar ...near to the IJM Development . They have rename the location to Pantai Sentral. THe KTM station is also renamed to Pantai Sentral . Near the Forest area. This is one of the last freehold new development .

We actually plan it as investment so can sell it in 3 years time. The project will complete in mid 2022

What's the name of the development?

Are you sure a flip type investment is something wise? Have you seen the amount of new condos coming up in the area?

Actually what is your budget for a condo?

What make you think you can sell it in 3 years with a profit. There are so many overhang out there and so many properties are being sold below the purchase price right now.

Its not anyone's place to tell u what u should and shouldn't do with your money. But it'll be better if we shared our experience and you can pick some lessons from it.

My story is I was relatively ok with money since young. Invested since I was 21 in stocks. Made a little from these small investments.

At about 30 I came into some large sum of money. With my background, I thought I was relatively savvy with money and investments etc, and was eager to throw money around.

I started becoming careless and skipped on my due diligence. I dumped most of it in unit trusts, high risk investments and even dabbled with crypto, money game, and lending it to friends.

2 years later, my "investment" is stagnant. Thank God I had the sense to diversify and kept my high risk investments to a minimum. With such a volatile market, I'm about 10% down from my new capital, more if I factor opportunity costs. Thankfully my older sensible investment and savings from our job have cushioned these losses.

My point is you have to be prudent and do your due diligence. Check and check before u sign above the dotted lines. Better to just leave the money in FD and only commit when you are absolutely certain.

I could give you a hug for such inspiring and well written post!

I'll tell you all from a child's perspective, since my parents can't afford to buy me any properties (but gave me their all to their best ), I've grown to be a much more responsible person, I'd say. Cuz I know how to value money and how hard earned each dollar is, and there's no shortcuts to success. If as parents, you kept giving your kids safety net, cars, house, money, what do you expect them to grow up to be? Do you think most of them care about taking care of you when you're old? They'd think mummy and daddy is rich, no need to bother. In fact, when you turn senile, you'd be a burden to them cuz all they really care is themselves, not you. I've seen this with my better off friends, not all are like that, of course, but some can be so rotten. Usually the struggling ones from young tend to appreciate parents more, and more hardworking

Btw, what they say here is right, if you have money, take care of yourself first. Your son is a grown man, let him earn his worth! Making him commit to a property he may end up not liking, paying off debts he doesn't need yet, will end up bitting you back. The typical respond from them would be "I never said I wanted one, right? You bought it, you pay for it".

This post has been edited by pinksapphire: Jun 17 2019, 01:18 AM

Do realize that it is not easy to get a property investment return in 3 years unless you get a really good discounted price, you put in a huge deposit or the property appreciates tremendously in that time frame, which is unlikely in current property market.

I read above that many had given sound advices. My opinion, settle your current house loan first as whatever you do to secure your own financial position now will still help your son in the long run. Hoping for quick returns can also quickly turn into disappointment.

First said bought for son, then said want to reap profit after 3 years.
Big confusion in the first place.

There is no "fast return" in any investment, all come with risk associated with it.

At mid 50, generally one should be planning to have lesser commitment and aim for more passive income to sustain potential retirement life in the coming future.
Not to say buying a property is a bad or good investment, but one should have clear of mind what is the intention of getting a property, and how the implication of financial situation and commitment.

Unless bought with cash or less loan amount, at mid 50, banks may not be willing to give long tenure.
Without long tenure, it could mean high commitment monthly which could have big implication towards the disposal income and saving for retirement purpose.

If the inheritance money is enough buy the property entirely with cash, then it is another story/scenario.

I do not see any financial sense in buying a condo in your son's name, before he even starts working for the following reasons:

1. Property is way overpriced now and prices are coming down hard in the next 2-3 years.
2. Do you even know how much his starting salary will be, to determine his ability to take over the loan?
3. Why invest your money into something that appreciates at the rate of FD? We are not living in the easy financing era anymore. Those days were gone.
4. Are you sure he would want to stay in the place you chose for him?
5. If he decides to use the condo as an investment, are you sure he can manage the property?

Many a times, parents only do what they "thought" would be the best for their children. Have you consulted your son over this matter? What was his opinion?
If you still insist to set up a savings for him, instead of purchasing that property, buy an ETF fund under his name and regularly top up that fund. In 20-30 years down the road the fund would've made more money for him.

i think you listen to some so called property millionaire guru.

please use the money and pay off your current house first.

dont think of another property in this week market.

its going to doom further down

This post has been edited by driedfish: Jun 17 2019, 02:03 PM

real estate is no longer a very attractive investment like what it used to in the past. there are a lot of costs attached to it with loan interest, in the end of the day, you wont get much after discounting all that. (provided the property appreciate in value) . at this moment, its probably not ideal to lock your son into a 35-year bank loan when he has not even graduated. there are too many uncertainties. he might not even want it. and its not that easy to sell property nowadays. rather not incur unnecessary commitment just for the sake of forced savings. keep the cash, who knows that some day some opportunity might pop up for you to invest.