My wife has 2 units in Mont Kiara (3+1 bedder and a 1 bedder). The 3+1 now is empty (used to be getting rm5k/mth) rented to a Japanese while the smaller one is still with a tenant (still paying at the moment). Luckily my wife doesn't owe any money on both units - only less income to use every month for her.

We are living overseas and cannot come back to check the units. Luckily i have still quite a lot of retirement savings overseas otherwise we will be in big trouble if we need to service a mortgage.

Times like this, debt (loan) is a miserable word! Luckily i have no debt at all.

After this pandemic, i don't think i would be interested to purchase any more properties for a long time!

This post has been edited by Garysydney: Apr 5 2020, 07:06 AM

I am about to retire soon so i don't want to carry any debt (loans) after i retire as i am very conservative. I have quite a lot of retirement fund (now all moved to cash from a very aggressive position before) after having lost about A$155k in 4 weeks. I can't move my cash to USD (which is a lot safer) so have no choice but to keep it in AUD. The AUD keeps falling so i am afraid by the time i actually retire, the AUD will have dropped even more. Best at this time to hold USD.

The apartment is a fully furnished executive-style type so my wife wants to only rent to expatriates. After this pandemic, i doubt there will be many foreign executives left. A lot of overseas executives will probably not be needed anymore (due to business downturn) so i think Mt Kiara will probably be full of empty units in the next few months and will probably stay like that for at least a few years. I suspect landlords will probably engage in a rental war (with rents being slashed drastically) in the next few months. My wife is very choosy with her tenants and she is in a financial position to even cut rental by 50-60% as the rental is just additional income on top of her monthly pension she gets from her Australian superfund (epf). Even without that rental of this 3+1 bedder, she can afford to spend quite comfortably.

I am in very secure employment working in a semi-govt job and if i am retrenched (which is what i am hoping for!), i can get a very big payout because i have worked in my current job for more than 29 years now. My wish is to get a redundancy as i am on quite a high pay so getting one will probably bump my retirement bottom line by another 30%. The only thing i am worried about now is the strength of the Aussie dollar (as i intend to retire in Msia).

I have a lot of long service and annual leave which will be added onto the payout and we get quite a big tax concession (calculated based on number of years service). I have lost about 20% due to currency loss and just under 10% for capital loss so getting a redundancy payout will about make up for my shortfall. My siblings in Sydney are advising me against taking up a redundancy (if it offered) as it will mean i will have to retire permanently now. My siblings were telling me that if i can work another few more years, i can easily add another 30-50% to my retirement bottom line and this will be much more a preferred path (financially). I will just leave it to my fate to decide on my destiny.