You inherit £500k, you're 63 and you're renting. What do you do?

Albermarle

Then once he has thought about that gently discuss aspects of ageing (proximity to reliable adult children and easy to manage and a cheap to run, warm house without too many stairs rapidly became very important to my IL and parents)

I would add

Not too far to walk to shops, pub etc. Not on a steep hill and with easy access to driveway, front door etc. Small garden.

The money has been split into savings accounts and the rate is now i think about 4.5%. Which sounds great but is of course less than inflation. 

Easy access accounts are not paying that much, so presumably you are talking about fixed term accounts.

Probably inflation will ease and by the end of 2023 maybe will be around 4.5%. However when they come to the end of the term, the interest rates on offer will be lower.

diystarter7

Hi

If I was younger gain we'f live in a rental and spend most of what we had and keep about 70k for a rainy day as I'm fed up with tax but I guess someone has to pay. However, its the IHT, and possibly of care home fees that really winds me up. Therefore, OP, don't bother buying a property, just have serval hols a year and updrade yourself and treat yuorself.

OP, you are the opposite of many that get a windfall that had little money, they blow it away. I am guessing you worked hard, saved and careful with spending and though we are in a different situation iw worked hard left work several properties acash in the bank, we too like you do not want to thrwo money away as we have seen it built up

What I would say is - enjoy it as much as you can and i know we are set in our ways but if you fly standard class, go buisness, if you rent a standard room, upgrade, etc, etc

Trust me you never know wahts around the corner, so if you can force yourself, enoy of types of hols you like even if they are realtively local  - you will get used to it

Good luck

mlv-1967

Simple. Advise him to buy a retirement flat somewhere, preferably well away from London, and put any leftovers in a pension.  

Malthusian

Deleted_User said:

I'm not sure " don't keep your money in a savings account that pays 4% when until very recently you might have only got 0.5% because inflation means you're going to lose money anyway " is sound financial advice.

Whether it is sound advice depends on the person. "Don't buy a house now because prices are guaranteed to fall over the next year", by contrast, is totally baseless speculation no matter who you are.
The last time everyone and his dog was predicting the housing market was going to fall was 2020. When we were going to spend years in lockdown, all the experts agreed a long recession was inevitable, and if you had to buy a new house at all costs you couldn't even go to look at it. How did that work out for those who didn't buy a house and stayed in cash waiting for prices to drop?


Oops!
*edit* And the really pernicious thing about belief in the housocalypse is that when people keep their money in cash waiting for an inevitable house price crash so they can buy cheaply next year, and it doesn't happen and prices go up another 7%, they don't say "Well, I was wrong, I guess I'll take my 7% loss like a big boy and buy". Some might, but it's contrary to human nature.
What they are far more likely to say is "Well, houses were overpriced at £300k average, and now they're even more overpriced at £320k average. So a crash is even more inevitable. It was crazy to buy at £300k so I'm certainly not going to buy at £320k. All I have to do is wait a year for an easy 15% profit!" (Their "fair value" for the average house is still £270k, remember, so the "inevitable 10% crash" is now an inevitable 16% crash. And next year it will be a 22% crash, and so on, and so forth...)
Waiting to buy something because you think it will be 10% cheaper next year (an opinion not shared by anyone who is buying it now) is gambling, and the full suite of gambler's logic applies, including the necessity of doubling down.
This is not of course particularly relevant to the OP's dad. It sounds like he is very unlikely to gamble his livelihood in an attempt to win a 10% cheaper house. It just illustrates that he should buy whenever he has found a house he wants and can afford, no earlier or later.

Albermarle

mlv-1967 said:

Simple. Advise him to buy a retirement flat somewhere, preferably well away from London, and put any leftovers in a pension.  

Retirement flats are generally poor investments, but that can be an advantage if you are buying one, especially one a few years old, as you should get it at a good price. Especially if the housing market generally is a bit soft.