100k where to invest?

IrnBruMan

The 40% in cash would be only if you are a very conservative investor or if you need access to the money in the next year or two.
Also, remember that cash is less safe than you might imagine because inflation eats in to the value of it. Inflation is higher than the interest rate you can get in many bank accounts right now and hose price inflation is far in excess of it.
This means the value of your money is actually decreasing by leaving it in a bank account. It can decrease by by half over a decade due to the power of compounding (inflation year, upon year).
You need to consider what type of investor you are and by that I mean how cautious. Then factor in how long you can keep your money invested for and how much you could afford to loose.
Also you don't state which country you live in and are domiciled in (for tax purposes) now? That could have an impact from a tax perspective.

Over the medium to long term stock market investing is usually the best option.

I'm an analyst of investment trusts, a type of investment fund for publications and journals. There are a number of very good cautious investment trusts with records of paying increasing dividends each year going back as much as 46 years.

doughnutmachine

returntotheuk wrote: »

Thanks for the advice guys.

Having done a bit more research, it seems that a lot of people advise that you should have 60% of your assets as investments and 40% as liquid cash? This does not include your the house you live in. Does this sound about right?

So, if this is the case then I am best to keep the majority of this 100k in savings so I can easily get to it if I need it. I already have a number of investments in property/land so it looks like the best thing to do it just put it some where as savings.

Finding the right place to save the money is not easy as a non resident of the UK ; - (

tbh, we would really need to know more about your other investments before anyone could give any real advice.

I think the 40% savings figure is very arbitrary. it would really depend on how safe your job is and how much savings you have.

I work abroad and I save my money into shares. I personally don't believe in cash savings because if I lost my job I could rely on investment income.

atush

I agree 40% cash is conservative, and I would not hold that much in these days of low returns in GBP.

So, where do you live? Is HSBC there? If not, you can contact the HSBC expat branch (may be based in Jersey- not sure) and set up an acct and an investment account where you can invest your money in GBP priced funds. I have HSBC accts in the UK, USA and France and you can send money between them (and to your existing UK acct) easily.

You may be able to open new accts with your old bank, and some building societies such as BM and Coventry will take deposits from those who live outside the UK.

returntotheuk

G_M wrote: »

"all your eggs in one basket"- so not all in property (or anything else..)

Reduced council tax on empty property for 6 months? Not any more! But check the relevant council.

Also see

New Landlords (information for new or prospective landlords)

Reduced council tax on empty property for 6 months? Not any more! But check the relevant council.

So, I presume you mean you have to pay full council tax in most case even if your property is empty? This would make a big difference to my decision.

I am not really sure if I want to rent it out, it is more for a holiday home. If it is rented then does the person who rents the property still pay for it?

returntotheuk

Thanks for all the info guys.

Here is some background information.

I am 43yrs old, married with 3 kids. We live in Cambodia, and we have done for 10 years. My wife has Cambodian citizenship, my kids and I have British citizenship.

We have no bank accounts in UK, only in Cambodia. There are no recogonised international banks here, the closest to international banks are Maybank, CIMB and Singapore Bank. There is no HSCB bank. Interest rates are pretty good from 1.5% to 6% but they no 85k guarantee to protect money if banks go bankrupt.

All of our investments are in land 40k, we own our own house with no mortgage 100k. We own other land plots in Cambodia too. We own a business worth 100k, another worth 40k and another worth 30k. We also own land in Bulgaria work 30k.

Cambodia is not as stable as I once thought, so I am looking to sell off some land and may be a business to either give me more liquid assets or to move the investment out of Cambodia. This why I am thinking of selling some of them and buying a property. I am looking at the UK, NZ or Malaysia. I was not really looking to rent the property out, it was more for a holiday home come investment (but not from letting).

Cheers Phil

ermine

returntotheuk wrote: »

TThis why I am thinking of selling some of them and buying a property. I am looking at the UK, NZ or Malaysia. I was not really looking to rent the property out, it was more for a holiday home come investment (but not from letting).

Can see where you're coming from, re the diversification. Although you're lookjing for geographical diversification, which is good, you are still heavily exposed to a single asset class, land. Given this is what you want to do, there are other ways to invest/speculate on UK house prices. Castle Trust's Housa, and Hearthstone unit trust are two, shares in Grainger PLC (which buys up property with Rent Act sitting tenants and waits for them to die to realise the property value, which is depressed below market price by the sitting tenacy which is at least 30 years old by now) and Mountview. These are all more complicated than BTL or in your case a holiday home, so definitely you need to research well to qualify the risks and whther they are likely to track house prices in the way you appear to want. Conversely, you don't have the fun and games of BTL, council tax, depreciation and all the other hurt that goes with owning a house you don't use.

I bought some stock in one of them purely to get in on the exp[ected results of of the government's Help To Buy farrago, there's nothing more ghastly in my view than getting into BTL though every other Brit seems to aspire to it, but if the Government is going to charge around inflating house prices while depreciating the value of the currency then it's worth a punt

atush

Do you ever get over to Singapore?

They have HSBC, otherwise contact HSBC expat services by phone or online.

Of the banks you mentioned, I would choose Singapore bank.

If you buy property and don't rent it out, you will have costs and expenses, and won't have any income on the money.

I would only buy property you can get an income from. And most likely in the country you plan to move to, if you think Cambodia isn't for you.

returntotheuk

ermine wrote: »

Can see where you're coming from, re the diversification. Although you're lookjing for geographical diversification, which is good, you are still heavily exposed to a single asset class, land. Given this is what you want to do, there are other ways to invest/speculate on UK house prices. Castle Trust's Housa, and Hearthstone unit trust are two, shares in Grainger PLC (which buys up property with Rent Act sitting tenants and waits for them to die to realise the property value, which is depressed below market price by the sitting tenacy which is at least 30 years old by now) and Mountview. These are all more complicated than BTL or in your case a holiday home, so definitely you need to research well to qualify the risks and whther they are likely to track house prices in the way you appear to want. Conversely, you don't have the fun and games of BTL, council tax, depreciation and all the other hurt that goes with owning a house you don't use.

I bought some stock in one of them purely to get in on the exp[ected results of of the government's Help To Buy farrago, there's nothing more ghastly in my view than getting into BTL though every other Brit seems to aspire to it, but if the Government is going to charge around inflating house prices while depreciating the value of the currency then it's worth a punt

The property investment groups sound interesting, they could be option. It certainly looks like having an empty in UK is a bad idea. There goes holiday home idea ; - (

returntotheuk

atush wrote: »

Do you ever get over to Singapore?

They have HSBC, otherwise contact HSBC expat services by phone or online.

Of the banks you mentioned, I would choose Singapore bank.

If you buy property and don't rent it out, you will have costs and expenses, and won't have any income on the money.

I would only buy property you can get an income from. And most likely in the country you plan to move to, if you think Cambodia isn't for you.

I normally get to Singapore once a year but I am not sure if I can open a bank in Singapore, rules in Singapore are similar to UK for opening bank accounts.

If I decide to buy a property, then I have narrowed it down to either UK or Malaysia. However, it looks like if I choose UK then I must rent it out for it to be worthwhile. If I buy a house in Malaysia then I am going to use it a lot more often. I think costs of keeping it empty are less than the UK, plus I maybe also to rent it to my friends for their holidays throughout the year which will cover my costs. Malaysia is looking more promising.

I do not want to move from Cambodia, I love it here but the government is not so stable as it once was plus the visa immigration is currently probably the easiest in the world apart from maybe Somali ; - (. So, the immigration rules are probably going to change sometime down the line which will probably restrict me from living here all year around. I also do not want all my assets in Cambodia which is my main concern.

If I have a house in Malaysia then I should be able to open a bank account. In the UK it is a little more awkward if I have to rent the house out. The other downside of having a house in the UK is that it costs me 5 times more for flights to get there from Cambodia then it does Malaysia.

spend2save

Keep it simple. You are in the Far East which has great demographics from which to yield good returns on investment. If I were you, I'd heavily research the local area (something your position gives you a natural advantage with) and invest for the 'long term' there. Europe, and to a lesser extent the Uk, will look much like the Far East ex Japan 20 years from now. In essence 'invest where the population growth will be', and you are lucky enough to be there already.