Anyway, back to the original question. OP's frame of reference seems to be still in the accumulation phase, where full ER is still several years off.thrifty++ wrote: ↑Fri Mar 08, 2019 3:00 pmOne thing I often think of is that it may be all well and good if you retire because you have a few hundred thousand dollars in assets, but what about needing somewhere to live.
I have the fear that it might be difficult to obtain rental accommodation if you are not doing regular paid work. Even if you have a decent amount of assets.
What are peoples experience with this? Is this fear founded or unfounded? And how to strategise yourself out of this risk?
There's an obvious solution, though: Why keep renting? If you have several hundred grand, why not just buy a place?
Vast parts of the US -- most of it, by area -- have houses in move-in condition under $100k. If you can swing a little more, like up to $150k, you can get something quite nice and can start talking suburbs of lower-cost-of-living cities. If you don't mind doing your own improvements or living in a prefab (trailer) you can buy a house for about the price of a decent new car.
If you have $500k and buy a $100k house, and have $400 in monthly expenses (utilities, taxes, HOA, maintenance) -- that's high by the way for rural areas -- the $400K you're left with will fund $933 in non-house monthly expenses at a 4% WR. You can live on that, can't you? Then if you're out for long periods traveling, you can rent/AirBNB it, especially if it's in a vacationey area. I know lots of five-figure houses and condos in vacationey areas. And the house is an asset -- if you hate it, want to live somewhere else, run out of money or whatever, just sell.
I'm still a renter, and after a point in life, renting starts to suck. The whole point is not just to live, but live well.