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Volatile markets pose several challenges for retirees who rely on receiving a livable income stream from their investments. Interest rates are low and likely to stay low for the foreseeable future, making cash and high-quality bonds a safe parking place for now. Amid such a challenging environment, it's hard to blame retired investors for looking beyond traditional investments like stocks, bonds, and cash, or the mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that invest in these securities.
Many investors have flocked to gold and other precious metals, while others have gravitated toward investment types like life settlements, distressed real estate investments, and private mortgage investments. Such non-traditional investments might hold the promise of higher returns compared with traditional asset classes, but there is often a trade-off of higher risks and/or costs. Moreover, investors in non-traditional investments might not benefit from the same liquidity, transparency, and regulatory oversight that investors in traditional assets have. The following three asset types have picked up traction, but it is important to understand the risks before entrusting your hard-earned cash to them.
Life Settlements: A life settlement originates when a life insurance policyholder, often an elderly or terminally ill person, sells his or her interest in the policy to a third party, usually at a level that is well below the policy's stated death benefit. The third party then resells, often by issuing securities, that interest to investors who in turn must keep the policy in effect by paying its premiums. When the originally insured person dies, the owner of the security collects the death benefit. The rate of return on a life-settlement investment will hinge on when the originally insured person dies. If death occurs within his or her estimated life expectancy, the return will be relatively high. But if the original policy owner lives well beyond the expected time frame, a life settlement can be a poor investment. Not only will it take a while to pay off, but the investor will have to fork over premiums on a regular basis.
Distressed Real Estate: Distressed properties typically sell at prices lower than what the owners paid and may be under foreclosure; their prices may also be low in absolute terms. As with investing in any other security type, seeking low valuations is a key way to bring down your risk, but distressed real estate investing is far from a low-risk endeavor. Distressed properties may require substantial additional investment before they can be rented or resold, and there is no guarantee that a seemingly low-priced property won't fall further still. Finally, real estate can be illiquid, and for smaller investors can be cost-prohibitive to build a diversified portfolio of properties.
Private Mortgages: The troubled housing market has given rise to another real estate-related investment, the private mortgage. In contrast to a loan extended by a bank or financial institution, a private mortgage is funded by individuals, groups of individuals, or a corporation that specializes in making such loans. A private mortgage holder may be able to earn a substantially higher interest rate than he or she can earn on cash or high-quality bond investment. At the same time, the risks of a private mortgage loan are also a lot higher than cash or bonds, even though the loan is secured by the property. Individuals usually turn to the private mortgage market because they can't secure bank financing; thus, they might have poor credit or limited down payments. Those risks can be exacerbated because it can be difficult to diversify in the private mortgage market.
Retirees should exercise caution when investing in non-traditional assets. It is important to understand that investors in these non-traditional assets might have to give up transparency, liquidity, and regulatory oversight.
