For 3k mortgage home, rental is about 2k in most locations. And maintenance is mostly by landlord.

In reality, most residential rental remain stagnant or even drop over the years in most locations.

The beauty of owning something is so you can do whatever the F you want with it, like if you want to build a sex room, who is going to say no to you? it's your own house what

But if you're looking to just have a roof over your head than renting will suffice. Also if your concern is interest there is a thing called full flexi loan.

Subjective, some prime location rental is slowly creeping back up already and again, on year 36 onwards, his expenses will be reduced, unless he die on end of year 35

Absolutely can.

I achieved FI 2 years ago, and last month decided to RE. I used to have 5 properties, got rid of 3 of them not really because of bad returns but too many headaches to manage the rent.

I am still renting out the remaining 2, while I myself stay at a rented place. I can see myself staying at this rented place forever.

I thought about letting go my remaining properties too but what’s stopping me is that i want to leave behind the homes to my 2 kids. Also, in case in the future i may need unforeseen big expense, i could always sell the homes.

Just for the sake of racing for FIRE,
to be the first to hit the finishing line...?rat race lah like that.
of course you can, its all up to you

you can cut down on many things we all do while enjoying our journey to finishing line

First to cut down is live poor, thrift on every thing
Dont buy expensive handphone
Dont buy expensive car or even cheap car,
just use GRAB .public transport.

A house is expensive so just rent.
Stay single , no responsibility to wife
be childless, save alot of money required to bring up kids

Can even cut allowance for parents,or dont give at all,
put all to investments...

Everything you do, you only calculate how much return you must get back.....
susah, not for me that kind of life.

1.85% or 2% is too low in FD circle. i have 4.85% FD , even simply put in KDI also get 3%
daily compounding interest

I think this is quite oversimplified things. Haven't calculate about the opportunity cost.

So I use an example here to explain

Scenario 1:
Imagine you buying a 500k house.
Downpayment: 50k
Monthly payment: 2k
Maintenance/furniture/tax/Reno: 1k
At the end of 35 years, you paid 840k total.
House value maybe at 1million. (Seriously house price I see quite stagnant already. This 100% return i think already optimistic)
This haven't include renovation, furniture, maintenance, taxes.

Scenario 2:
You put the 50k in index fund.
Monthly DCA: Rm1500
Pay Rent: 1500
At the end of 35 years @ 6% growth
Your portfolio size still got 2.5million

(Quite conservative already since average return of S&P500 is 8% for past few decades)


Yes rent may increase but I don't think it's going anywhere that is too high. And the compounding return from index fund can cover it.


Using this 2 example, 50k initial capital + 3k monthly payment

In Scenario 1 you end up with a house but zero cash.

In scenario 2 you end up with 2.5million in index fund. 6% return means you get 150k per year (or 12500 monthly passive income) l can continue to pay rent to homebuyers. Or I can choose to buy a 1million house and still have 1.5million.

Sorry some typo: scenario 1 already include maintenance and Reno cost

depends how old you want to start a family.

my case:

age 23 start work, save and invest till 700k (includes 120k EPF) at age 32. want to save 1 mil for retirement before settle down but well, things did not go according to plan and got married before it. but 300k will not make much difference anyway

children pop out this year. looks like cash flow will be net zero after taking off all expenses and loans

my take home salary is only about 5k

now if you ask me, 700k if taruh all in reits, boleh RE now if single? can. but your life will be just meh.... what are you going to do with 2-3k monthly passive income?

to your questions, yes. it does stop me, but i think life is just not about having single life forever. how old you want to keep on bang FWB and going Pros for sex? how are you going to cope when all of you mamak kaki already stop hang out and jaga kids?

You are missing a crucial point imho .

You said assume that we have 1 mil capital .

So in this scenario , you also said IF scenario A u buy a house , you will need to pay 2 mil incl interest in 35 years . But just after that you said , instead of buying that house why not invest in index funds and etc . The crucial point is , why do you need to get a housing loan if you have 1 mil ? You can buy the house outright . That means there's no interest .

Secondly , you can actually do both at the same time , you may put 150k as d/p for the house , finance the rest . And with 850k you may invest it in any funds or epf and etc that you like . Just a food for thought . Im not saying that you should buy a 1 mil house ya . For me personally , a 400k small terrace on the outskirts is good enough .

Thirdly , the way i look at it is , in your scenario B , you said to use your passive income from the 1 mil capital invested in funds and etc to pay for your rent . But in this case , doesn't this "rent" become the "interest of housing loan " in scenario A ? It just has a different name but in effect , there is a set amount of monies leaving your pocket just the same .

My quote was before the recent rate increases but yeah, if we look hard enough, we can get better yields.

Owning a house for own stay is more for own security purposes. yes you can rent but it won't be fun having to pack and move every few years especially when you are 60, 70, 80 years old.

Which post are you replying? A bit confused

Your own la

After retirement, unless staying with children, one or two bed room apartment would be sufficient for most people. Rental of these types of unit are plentiful.

This post has been edited by icemanfx: Jul 25 2022, 11:44 AM

it depends on individual's wants/priorities.

for married folks with children, they may want a "home base" for the management of stability - U know, like logistics to schools, kids' extra curricular activities, support, friends, etc. Ya - once we had kids, our lives aren't ours anymore XD. All decisions are weighted more towards the kids' welfare IF that's a priority to the parents

for those who are into travelling / digital nomad lifestyle long term, a home may be anywhere they are as long as they can keep in contact with their loved ones

i fall into the former grouping but i also leverage on my home's flexi mortgage for savings and investment usage when opportunities pops up.

No "one true way" ya, not Mando's this is the way XD - just sharing personal thoughts and executions.

i don't doubt the abundance of these units. it's the moving that is the pain. unless we have super professional house movers like Tokyo that will take care from A-Z for you then can consider.

Fully agree, diff strokes for diff folks

Paying loan plus interest is akin to paying rent but with final result of owning the house. After retire and almost finish using savings, can sell house and move to luxury old folks home as a back up plan. This works better with landed properties.

i've moved home 3 times... painful + costly in terms of hassle, time, disruption and monetary as well.
Note - not solo ya, family moving.

Also, one can look at it as being one's best rental customer AND one's best landlord

then again, i dont like "travelling" overseas and whatnot. my home is my man-cave , thus other's mileage may vary.