A financial advisor in Fort Myers can help you see what everything you own can produce: the house, any rental property, your retirement accounts, and your investments. Holland Capital plans the income, the cash you keep for the property and the taxes, then invests the rest to fit.
You own the house. There is a rental, maybe two, bought when prices were lower. There is a 401(k) or an IRA, a brokerage account, and some cash in the bank. On paper, you are doing fine.
The harder question is what all of it can produce. The rent covers the rental’s mortgage most months. The insurance renewal came in higher again. The accounts have a balance, but nobody has told you how much you could take from them each year, or how much should stay in cash for the day something happens to one of the properties.
Those answers depend on each other. A larger cash reserve means less invested for retirement. A rental that nets less than you thought changes how much the accounts have to supply. Selling a property changes your taxes, your income, and how much of your wealth sits in one place.
Holland Capital puts the whole picture in one place: what each piece is worth, what it produces after its costs, and how much of your future depends on Florida real estate. Then we decide how the investments should be built around it.
More of What You Own May Be Real Estate Than It Looks
A brokerage statement shows a value every day. A rental property shows up once a year, on a tax return, and the figure there says little about how the property is really doing for you.
Start with what each rental nets. Rent, minus the mortgage, insurance, property tax, repairs, vacancy, and any management fee. It is easy to go years without adding that up for a full twelve months, and insurance alone can change the answer.
Then look at how much of your net worth sits in real estate in one area. A house and two rentals in Lee County can be most of what a family owns. Property cannot be sold off in pieces to fund one year of living expenses. And every property you own here faces the same storms, the same insurance market, and the same local prices at once.
At some point the question becomes what to do with each rental: keep it, sell it, trade it for another property, or hold it for the children. Selling brings a tax bill. The depreciation you claimed over the years is generally taxed at up to 25 percent, and the rest of the gain is taxed as a capital gain. A 1031 exchange defers that tax, but the money stays in real estate. Holding the property until death gives your heirs a new cost basis, which clears the deferred gain. We weigh those choices as part of capital gains tax planning.
None of this assumes you should sell. We work out what each property produces, what it would cost to sell, and whether your retirement leans on real estate more than you want it to. Then you decide what to keep.
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The Insurance Bill, the Deductible and the Cash You Keep
The homeowners renewal costs far more than it did a few years ago. The hurricane deductible is usually a percentage of the dwelling coverage, not a flat amount. On a house insured for $500,000, a 2 percent deductible is $10,000 before the policy pays anything. Each rental carries its own policy and its own deductible.
Hurricane Ian made landfall in Lee County in September 2022. Owners who went through it know the order of events: pay the deductible, wait on the claim, and cover repairs from savings in the meantime.
So the cash reserve has a specific size. Add the hurricane deductible on every property, the flood deductible if you carry flood coverage, a few months of costs on any rental that could sit empty during repairs, and your ordinary emergency money. That total belongs somewhere safe and easy to reach.
The rest does not need to sit in cash. Keeping too much idle has its own cost, especially over a long retirement. Once the reserve is sized, the portfolio can be invested for the jobs it actually has.
Higher premiums are also a retirement cost. If insuring your home now costs several thousand dollars more a year than when you made your plan, that is income your savings have to produce for the rest of your life. We build the current bills into your retirement planning, not the ones from five years ago.
If your home is damaged, the Lee County Property Appraiser says you can keep your homestead exemption during repairs, provided you notify the office that you intend to rebuild and keep the home as your permanent residence.
Investments That Balance the Real Estate
If much of your wealth is already in Florida property, part of the portfolio’s job is to behave differently from it. Adding real estate funds can deepen a concentration you already have.
The plan tells us what the investments need to cover. Some money is the cash reserve. Some will fund the next several years of spending once work stops. The rest can be invested for the long run, with the rent and any pension or Social Security already counted as income. How those pieces fit together is the subject of portfolio construction.
The accounts you already have may be well built. The brokerage account may hold stock bought years ago at a much lower price. Any change is weighed against its tax cost before it is made.
Our investment management carries out the plan and adjusts when you buy, sell, or refinance a property.
Working with Holland Capital
Holland Capital Management is an independent registered investment adviser and a fiduciary. M. Chad Holland, CFA, CFP® works directly with clients and is responsible for the planning and advice.
For the first meeting, the most useful papers are last year’s tax return and the declarations page from each insurance policy. Between them, they show the income, the costs, and the deductibles.
Our planning process, Retirement Engineering™, puts the properties, the accounts, and the cash reserve into one retirement income plan, and keeps it current as rents, premiums, and markets change.
When a property sale or exchange changes your return, we plan it with your CPA. When a deed needs to match your estate plan, your attorney handles the paperwork.
The first conversation is free. If there is work worth doing after that, we will define the scope and cost before you decide whether to move forward.
Our Florida office is in Winter Park. If you are looking for a financial advisor in Fort Myers, we can work together without your adviser being down the street. Most meetings are by video or phone. When it makes sense to sit down together, we can meet by appointment at the Regus center at 9160 Forum Corporate Parkway. Holland Capital does not maintain a branch office in Fort Myers.
We work with clients throughout Florida. You can see the other Florida communities we serve here.
See what we do for how engagements are structured.
RETIREMENT ENGINEERING™
The Order Matters
Five retirement decisions and why timing matters.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Homeowners Insurance Cover Flood Damage?
Standard homeowners policies generally do not cover flooding. Flood coverage is a separate policy, through the National Flood Insurance Program or a private insurer.
A new NFIP policy usually has a 30-day waiting period before it takes effect, so it cannot be bought once a storm is on the way. Details are on the program’s FloodSmart site.
Should I Sell a Rental Property Before I Retire?
Compare what the property nets each year with what the sale proceeds, after tax, could reliably produce if invested. Then add what the numbers leave out: the time the property takes, the insurance risk, and how much of your wealth it ties to one market.
Timing affects the tax. A sale in a year when your other income is low, such as the first years after work stops, can mean a smaller tax bill on the same gain.
What Is a 1031 Exchange?
It lets you sell investment real estate and defer the tax on the gain by buying other investment real estate with the proceeds. The deadlines are strict. You generally have 45 days after the sale to identify the replacement property and 180 days to close on it, and the money has to be held by a qualified intermediary, not by you.
The deferred gain carries into the new property. It does not disappear unless the property is held until death.
Can I Rent Out My Florida Homestead?
Only briefly. Under section 196.061, Florida Statutes, renting all or substantially all of your homestead for more than 30 days a year in two consecutive years is treated as abandoning the homestead.
Losing the exemption also ends the Save Our Homes limit on the assessed value, so the property tax can rise sharply. If you plan to move and rent out your current home, factor that into the numbers first.
Are You a Fee-Only Financial Advisor in Fort Myers?
We offer financial planning on a fixed-fee basis, subject to the scope of the engagement. Investment management is offered on a fee basis, generally calculated as a percentage of the assets we manage. When providing financial planning and investment advisory services, we act as a fiduciary.
Photo: qwesy qwesy / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0, cropped.
