Should I sell my $1m investment property and put it into my super?

August 26, 2026 — 5:01am

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I’m a young retiree at 61 years. I have a $500,000 share portfolio and a 20-year-held investment property worth $1 million. I’m of a mind to sell the property and realise the share portfolio over the next four years, and slowly use concessional contributions to the maximum to get the money into a good super fund.

I wonder if I’m putting all my eggs into one basket, so to speak. However, I feel simplicity moving forward in retirement is good. The amount in super should provide a perpetual retirement income, as we intend to take the minimum government limits, i.e. 4 per cent, 5 per cent, etc. What are your thoughts on such a simplification?

Finally, you mentioned the downsizer contribution of $300,000 into super. If you’re already at your cap, i.e. $1.9 million for myself, I take it the $300,000 has to sit in the accumulation bucket and thus have gains taxed. Is this correct?

You’ve held the investment property for a long time, so the decision about selling it sooner rather than later should be based primarily on its future potential, not on how long you have owned it.

But I do think money invested in a good super fund should outperform a 20-year-old investment property, particularly once you consider the costs and hassles that come with owning property.

I also don’t see why you need to leave all the proceeds in accumulation mode. It would seem you have plenty of room to contribute money to super and then transfer it to pension mode, where the earnings will be tax-free.

Shares acquired before September 1985 will lose their CGT-free status on June 30, 2027.

As for investing part of the portfolio more aggressively in international shares, there is nothing........

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