£400K What is realistic Income?

newfoundglory

I'm not recommending that you do this, but if I had 400k i'd probably consider buying several properties around the country and letting them out (depending on your view, London could be very lucrative over the coming years)

Now, I do have about 200k cash in the bank - earning approx 2.9% gross. My 'portfolio' is about 95% cash. But I don't own the house I live in. I can get away with this, in part, because i'm a basic rate taxpayer.

The s&s isas I have held over the last 5 years have performed very badly (I havent lost, but I would have made more ££ by investing in high-interest cash deposits)

The only reason for this, is I believe the markets are too volatile in certain parts of the world. Europe in particular, but also the US is questionable for ordinary investors over the mid-long term in my opinion.

Historically, if you invested over 5 to 10 years you would expect good returns - and i'm not convinced this is now the case. Too many question marks.

I do still invest in funds, but am careful which I choose and typically I go for high dividend yields with potential for growth, as I see income as a way of offsetting possible losses in the value of the capital.

Clearly, you need to have a set of investments aligned to what risk you are prepared to accept.

Daniel_Elkington

IFA's generally are about other things as they aren't confidant with property or stocks etc and they cannot advise on them.

A good IFA will recognise their wealth management clients may have needs outside of packaged products and direct investments may be of benefit. As experts they are in the position to explain the risks (and there is much more catastrophic risk using a direct investment rather than a packaged one) and potential benefits and if a client is prepared to go for that risk/reward with a portion of their portfolio then they should appoint a strategic partner to deal with that client.

Wealth mangers will not advise that, it's all in the wording I'm afraid and I'm going to sound a bit jargonistic now but you asked;

We are given certain permission by the FSA. These do not, generally, include direct investments. We cannot therefore 'advise' that you invest in these as we would be acting outside our permissions from the FSA and run the risk of being de-registered.

We can tell you these things exist and a good wealth manager will have the strategic partners available who can advise you on these investments.

Personally I think you can make a lot of money from direct investments - of which b2l is one type of direct investment. You can also theoretically lose everything on it and can lose a lot of money buying nothing so the downside risk is a lot larger.

Again, we cannot advise, but we can see a need and find someone to fill it.