Is property really better than a pension?

It’s no surprise that we’re big believers in the long-term power of property…but we were surprised when the Bank of England’s Chief Economist said he’d back property over a pension too.

So in this week’s episode we ask if property is really better than a pension. We cover:

• What the BoE’s Andy Haldane said
• Whether property really has outperformed equities over the last 30 years
• The advantages of property as a long-term asset
• The advantages of pensions over property
• Why property isn’t the right retirement choice for everyone
• Why you definitely shouldn’t be relying on your main residence to fund your retirement
• …and a bit of a rant about the disaster of pension provision (also listen to our pension crisis episode)

It’s far from being a whitewash – so take a listen, and see what you think.

Resource of the week

There’s some useful stuff to be found on Facebook…but it’s also got the potential to be an enormous waste of time.

Now you can get all the benefits without the baby photos and isn’t-my-life-perfect posturing, by using the Facebook newsfeed eradicator. It’s an extension for the Chrome browser which blocks the newsfeed from appearing completely – so you can go and look at the content you want without the risk of getting distracted.

So there you go: time saved, so you can waste more time on Rightmove!

News this week

Here we go again…another tax change to pick on property investors. Or is it?

An amendment was spotted in the Finance Bill that appeared to mean that the profits from disposing of property would be treated as income, not a capital gain. But as reported by the NLA, it appears that it’s only supposed to apply to overseas trading companies.

So nothing to panic about it seems, but some people are worried that the ambiguous wording could be used to target domestic buy-and-hold investors all the same. Watch this space and we’ll let you know how it develops!