Getting a Mortgage When You Have Assets But No Income
Getting a Mortgage When You Have Assets But No Income
Posted by Darrow Kirkpatrick | Aug 28, 2017 | Real Estate, Retiring
Most early retirees have no pension, annuity, or Social Security income. Even if you’re a traditional retiree, you might have only one of those income streams. But what if your lifestyle plans require a home purchase? Even if you have the savings to afford a house, you might not necessarily be able to liquidate enough of those assets quickly in a tax efficient manner. So you’ll need a mortgage. But most conventional mortgage loans are based on income. If you can’t show income, how do you go about getting a mortgage?
When we retired, downsized, and moved west I swore I’d never own another house. My post about our move across the country spells out the high quality of life we’ve achieved as renters — without the obligations of home ownership.
My article about renting vs. buying — one of the most popular on this site — lays out a procedure for analyzing the rent vs. buy decision. It’s a financial analysis that, in today’s world, is by no means guaranteed to support buying as the superior option….
But I have never denied the emotional benefits of home ownership. There is an element of control and security in owning the property where you live. I’m not immune to that feeling. We owned our home for the 17 years we were raising our son in Tennessee, and were content. But, for the past four years, other factors have clearly made renting the better choice for us.
Now, the scales may be tipping as we get visibility into later stages of retirement. The prospect of home ownership has again dawned. Up to now, we have loved our vagabond lifestyle, traveling the west from our home base in Santa Fe. Buying a home now would be a tacit acknowledgment that we were “settling down” in one place for our retirement. But this would be no snap decision for us. Our financial independence hinges on keeping our nest egg working hard. We can’t afford a six-digit mistake.
And, if we were to buy a home, another problem presents itself: We can well afford it, on paper, but where would we get the cash? Yes, we do keep a few years of living expenses on hand. But we don’t have any more than that lying around. The proceeds from our previous home sale in Tennessee have long since been folded into our growing portfolio. And, our other investment positions go back many years. So we can’t sell assets without incurring large capital gains taxes. This all means we would need a mortgage….
To continue reading, please go to the original article here:
https://www.caniretireyet.com/getting-a-mortgage-when-you-have-assets-but-no-income/