NZ Herald 22 October 2016

AAlways. So far, anyway. And it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which it wouldn’t work out.

But — and this is important — you should invest in property or shares only if you don’t expect to spend that money for at least ten years. The same applies to funds that invest largely in shares or property, such as higher-risk KiwiSaver funds.

Even if a market crashes, it almost always recovers within ten years. And the vast majority of the time, you will get a higher return over a decade than if you had chosen a lower-risk investment. On the rare occasions this doesn’t apply, the superior returns should happen within a few more years.

What if you’re investing in a middle-risk fund, such as a KiwiSaver balanced fund, that includes perhaps half shares and/or property? Typically that will recover from a crash within around three or four years, if not sooner.

If you expect to spend the money within just a few years, it shouldn’t be in property or shares in the first place — unless you love risk. There’s too big a chance its value will fall over a short period.

Okay, so we’ll assume you’re talking about long-term money. Why not heed the warnings that both shares and property — especially Auckland property — may be riding for a fall, and get out now? And then, when the market has dropped, get back in again? This is called market timing, and it seems like an obvious road to riches.

The trouble is that nobody — and that includes experts whose full-time job is to watch the markets — gets it right often enough. They sell too early, and the market continues to rise. Or they sell too late, after a crash. Or they buy when they think we’re in a trough, but then the market drops further. Or they delay buying and miss a rally.

Often there’s no good explanation for short-term movements in property or shares. They simply can’t be predicted.

“Successful market timing requires two correct decisions: when to get out and when to get back in,” says financial analyst Rick Ferri in Forbes magazine. “Guessing right once is a 50/50 proposition. Guessing right twice drops the odds to only 25 percent…. This is what makes market timing so difficult.”

That means, of course, that quite a few fund managers, analysts and economists make the right call once, and perhaps a quarter get it right twice. The doesn’t mean you should switch to them. Financial history is full of stories of regretful investors who moved to a fund manager who seemed to have worked out market timing.

Last year a US financial market research firm published data on American share funds. Over 30 years, investor returns in share funds averaged 3.8 per cent, while the S&P500 — an index of the biggest US shares — grew a much faster 11.1 per cent.

If you had invested in an S&P 500 index fund, whose managers simply buy the shares in the index and don’t try to time markets, your return would have been a bit lower than the index because of fees. But it would still be much better than in the average active share fund, whose managers would have been trying to time markets.

There are similar figures for shorter periods. Over 20 years the funds averaged 5.2 per cent, while the S&P averaged 9.9 per cent; over 10 years it was 5.3 per cent versus 7.7 per cent, and so on.

Looking at the extremes, of all the monthly returns over 30 years, the worst “underperformance” by the share funds — the biggest gap between their returns and the S&P500 — was in October 2008. In that month, in the depths of the global financial crisis, shares funds fell a horrible 24.2 per cent that month, while the S&P fell a somewhat milder 16.8 per cent.

On the other hand, in a boom market, share funds rose only 3.7 per cent in March 2000, while the S&P rose 9.8 per cent.

“The underperformance results from bad investor decisions at critical points, the first in the face of severe market declines and the second when the equity market surged,” said Dalbar.

If the professionals can’t get it right, what chance have you or I got?

You’re quite right, it’s best to just stay put. People pay good money for the ups and downs of a roller coaster ride. In investing, you don’t have to pay anything extra for the thrills!

If you’re drip feeding money into KiwiSaver or another investment, celebrate the fact that when the market falls, you are buying in at low prices. In the long run, continuing to invest through thick and thin is a winning strategy.

One more point: While it doesn’t cost anything to switch between high and low-risk KiwiSaver funds, it does in most other investments. If you’re moving in and out of direct shares or — perish the thought — properties, you’ll also be paying expenses, which should include taxes on your gains. It’s just another argument against trying to time markets.

AYou’re right that there’s nothing inherently wrong with buying a house on land that you lease from someone. It’s much cheaper than other property, and could suit some people.

The biggest problems usually stem from the fact that a rent review takes place only every 20 years or so. And if the rent increase is based on how much the land value has risen, the rent might well be multiplied.

As I said last week, an Auckland woman in 2013 abandoned her property after lease payments zoomed from $8300 to more than $70,000 a year.

Much more frequent reviews, perhaps annually, would remove such shocks. Even so, when land values soar — as they have done recently in Auckland and now elsewhere — annual lease payment increases could still be steep.

I wouldn’t like to see a retiree taking on such an arrangement unless they could cope with that. It’s not wise to just say, “If the lease payments rise too fast, I’ll sell.” In those circumstances, there might be no buyers.

Landlords, too, need to know what they might be in for. In 2013 a landlord wrote to this column: “Currently I have a leaking apartment that requires $120,000 of repair work, plus because it is on leasehold land the ground rent increases have destroyed its value as an investment.”

As I also said last week, “This is a game for someone who can afford to lose at it — maybe someone who buys ten cheap leasehold properties and some turn out well because they were so cheap, making up for the disasters.”

There’s an irony here, though. If property prices plummet — which some people are predicting — owners of leasehold houses might do quite well. Their lease payments might even fall if they are reviewed frequently.

But anyone entering any major financial commitment should always think through how they would handle a worst case scenario. With most property buyers that would be a big mortgage interest rise. With buyers of leasehold property, it should also include a big lease increase.

AArohanui to you too. It’s much easier to be caught in an error by someone who signs off that way, and makes such a kind comment about the column! (I usually edit out compliments, but decided not to this time.)

You’re quite right. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’ve blended $87 — the correct monthly amount — and $1043, and come up with $83. Very slack of me.

I wasn’t wrong with the other figure, though. It was weekly, not fortnightly, and I correctly said “You might want to set up an automatic contribution from your bank account of $20 a week.”

It’s true that $20 times 52 is only $1040, but that’s so close to $1042.86, the maximum credit before rounding, that it doesn’t matter.

Besides, $20 a week is easy to remember. And because there are 52 weeks and one day in each year — plus one more day in leap years — a weekly $20 contribution will bring your total to $1060 in some years.

The weird $1042.86 total is actually based on $20 a week. If you divide $20 by 7 to get a daily amount, and multiply that by 365 days, you get $1042.8571.

Thanks for pointing out the error. And apologies to anyone who has set up a monthly $83 contribution. You might want to change it to $87, to pick up $23.43 more tax credit each year. It all helps.

The $20-a-weekers might even want to change to $21. The difference in your tax credit in some years — a whole $1.43 — might buy you a third of a cup of coffee.