Adjusting to a softer real estate market
A big reason that Fiona Saulness has saved as much as she has for retirement is real estate.
Not only has the 52-year-old made a good living as a realtor, her investments in her Arizona house (which she owns free and clear) and a Seattle condo (which she rents out) have helped her amass nearly three-quarters of a million dollars in home equity.
But if she continues to focus so much on real estate – at the expense of her investment portfolio – it may threaten her retirement plans down the road. In part because she’s been hoarding money in case she finds a third property, her hodgepodge of a portfolio is offtrack.
She currently has a quarter of a million dollars sitting in cash. Yet she needs to make more on her investments than cash pays, since she can’t count on earning what she did as a realtor at the market’s peak – in 2006, she made more than $200,000.