Life Income Fund (LIF)- Has anyone used for investing?

[Matthew2145]

Hello Everyone,

I was wondering if anyone here has any experience in using a Life Income Fund (LIF) or a Locked-in Retirement Income Funds (LRIF) for investing in Real Estate?

I know many people here are utilizing RSP funds from JV partners to invest in real estate, however I was wondering if anybody has any experience in using a Life Income Fund or a Locked-in Retirement Income Funds (LRIFs) from a JV partner to invest in real estate?

I am not certain if these types of Financial instrument would be eligible to be used for real estate investments like you can with an RSP

Thank you for any help

 

[Thomas Beyer]

LIF is a subset of RIF / RRSP. Only certain eligible instruments are allowed in an RRSP but not real estate directly. As such you need a level of indirection.

The ways to have your RRSP utilize real estate include:

a) mortgages,
b) in a syndicated structure like we used to offer ( via a bond or mutual fund structure),
c) shares in a MIC or
d) shares in any publicly traded firm including REITs or REOCs.

Most JVs do not use RRSP money. If they do they usually do it only after closing by adding a second mortgage with a fixed or variable rate of return. The process for setting up JV mortgages is somewhat time consuming and paper intensive but certainly doable. Annual and setup fees are such that a minimum of $50,000 is suggested for RRSP mortgages.