The recent declines in the stock markets around the world have sent many people looking at their investment portfolios with grave concern. It’s dis-heartening that investors across the world in a different country can send our own North American markets into a tail spin. Fortunately this time around many investors saw the light at the end of the tunnel and instead of selling their investments and solidifying their losses, they chose to double-down and buy some deals in the marketplace. It never makes sense to sell your stocks when the market is down because then you’ll never have the opportunity to make your money back when the market comes back up again. 

But wait, what if you were retired and the market stayed down for a few months and you actually needed to live off that money? Now, that decrease in your investment portfolio will affect your daily living and budgeting. But what if, you saw the writing on the wall and took some additional precautions before you retired to add one or a few investment properties to your overall portfolio so that if the stock market went down and you needed cash, you’d still have a steady stream of rental income coming in? That’s what I decided to do in 2008 when we had the last big crash, I started to think what if I had just turned 65 and the market crashed, then what. I started to build my own real estate portfolio to mitigate against any possible losses to my RRSP when I retired. 

I’m happy that I have my RRSP but I am also happy that I own a few investment properties. It’s like I’m hedging my bets in retirement. And I feel a house is something more in my control. I wrote about investing in real estate as a back-up plan for your retirement in the Amazon Best-Seller, Success Today with Brian Tracy. I have joined a select group of entrepreneurs from around the world to co-author, Success Today: Common Sense but Uncommon Knowledge from ​Today’s ​Leading ​Entrepreneurs and ​Professionals to ​Help ​You ​Lead an ​Extraordinary ​Life of ​Health, ​Wealth and ​Success. You can purchase the book on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/davellesbook. Please let me know what you think and if I can help you plan your own real estate retirement portfolio.