Ep 23: Mailbag - Selling a Business, Pension Buyouts, and More

Retirement Coach's Corner

On today’s episode, we are opening up the mailbag to answer some of your questions about retirement and financial planning. We’ll discuss selling a business, pension buyouts, and splitting assets during a divorce.

Tim says, “I am a dentist and I am thinking about retiring in the next five or so years. I own my building so would I be better off selling the building and investing that cash or try to sell my practice to someone else and rent the building to them?”

We would want to know how much you could receive in rent for the building. Looking at properties if we can get a 6 to 8% return a year, it’s a great return. But it’s really going to be about income. How much income can you create with all the assets you’ve accumulated? You’ll want to do the math and see which option creates the most income revenue.

Harvey explains, “The airline that I fly for is eliminating pensions and giving us a buyout instead. I’m not being forced to retire but now I won’t be increasing my pension by working more years. Should I retire now? What should I do with my buyout?”

To answer this question accurately we would need to know Harvey’s situation. Have you saved enough to be able to retire right now? With pension buyouts, we typically see that people want control of their money.

Taking that lump sum and investing in the future probably makes the most sense. You really need to sit down with an advisor and have an in-depth conversation about where you are in your retirement plan and how you can get where you want to be.

Vickie says, “It’s very likely my husband and I will be getting divorced in the next year or two. I’m already retired and he plans to retire in the next few years. How does splitting our assets change my retirement picture?”

A divorce is an emotional event. You’ve planned to have double the assets and now find yourself splitting them. We really want to look at your situation and see what the possibilities are with this new turn in your plan. We’ll look at which type of assets would be better to split.

Sometimes individuals in a divorce can keep what’s there’s and it works great that way. But it really depends on where you are invested and what your plan looks like. If you can sit down and go over everything before the divorce actually happens, you’ll be in a lot better shape in the long run.

What we discuss in this episode:

1:21 – “Should I sell the building my business is in or rent it out?”

4:52 - “What should I do with my pension buyout and should I retire now?”

7:34 – “My husband and I are getting a divorce. How does splitting our assets change my retirement?”

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