[00:00.96]There's a saying, I don't know who by, that you should "invest in land, because they don't make it any more."
[00:08.93]I think that's good advice. Around 2004 there started to be a lot of stories in the media about company pensions
[00:17.06]and private pensions not delivering the benefits they had promised, mainly because they were linked to stock market investments.
[00:24.65]At that point I decided to withdraw my money from my own private pension and put it into property.
[00:31.38]I figured that if I bought a small office building, then by the time I reached retirement age,
[00:37.10]I would have paid off the mortgage and could live off the rent, so that's what I did.
[00:42.96]I realised quite early on that my state pension wasn't going to be sufficient, so I took out a private one when I was about 30.
[00:51.39]It works like a managed investment fund, a mixture of blue-chip stocks,
[00:57.19]so I don't really have much say in how the money is invested.
[01:01.10]Unfortunately, like a lot of private pension schemes, it hasn't really performed as predicted.
[01:08.25]I think the projected growth rate was between 8 and 12% and it's grown at about 4.5%, which isn't much above inflation.
[01:18.36]There are signs that the stock markets are doing a little better now,
[01:22.96]so I'm hopeful that in the long run I will have reasonable funds for my retirement.
[01:28.54]Would I advise anyone to do the same, with hindsight, probably not .

There's a saying, I don't know who by, that you should "invest in land, because they don't make it any more."
I think that's good advice. Around 2004 there started to be a lot of stories in the media about company pensions
and private pensions not delivering the benefits they had promised, mainly because they were linked to stock market investments.
At that point I decided to withdraw my money from my own private pension and put it into property.
I figured that if I bought a small office building, then by the time I reached retirement age,
I would have paid off the mortgage and could live off the rent, so that's what I did.
I realised quite early on that my state pension wasn't going to be sufficient, so I took out a private one when I was about 30.
It works like a managed investment fund, a mixture of blue-chip stocks,
so I don't really have much say in how the money is invested.
Unfortunately, like a lot of private pension schemes, it hasn't really performed as predicted.
I think the projected growth rate was between 8 and 12% and it's grown at about 4.5%, which isn't much above inflation.
There are signs that the stock markets are doing a little better now,
so I'm hopeful that in the long run I will have reasonable funds for my retirement.
Would I advise anyone to do the same, with hindsight, probably not .