Looking for how best to invest proceeds from the sale of an investment property

[Stephanie Ridgway]

Hi, I'm reposting this - it was formerly  in the Personal Finance section.  Someone suggested I put it into the tax forum:

Hello, hoping some of you may have a recommendation for me/ can point me in the right direction. We have a duplex in Boulder, CO that is under contract to sell 11/24/25. We will net about $875k in proceeds after taxes ($266k). Our plan is to put the tax portion into a high yield savings account until it's time to pay it out.

We would like to transfer the $875k into a taxable brokerage account by dollar cost averaging over 10-12 months. Planning on investing in a blend of ETFs, some gold/ silver ETFs, etc. (essentially following Frank Vasquez). I was thinking of putting the uninvested lump sum into a high yield savings account until it's ready to be shifted into ETFs. My husband is thinking it would make more sense to put the lump sum into gold until it's ready to be shifted into the diversified ETFs. Curious what you all think.

As a side note, the bulk of our net worth is currently in real estate with about $550k in Roth IRAs. We are selling this property to diversify our assets and so we can have more liquidity with our assets as we have 2 kids entering college in the next few years. We are in our early 50's, with the goal to retire in about 10-14 years. We have looked into DST's/ 1031 but prefer liquidity over tax savings on this transaction.

Thanks!

[Jason Malabute]

Hey Stephanie,

Totally understand your situation — if liquidity is your main priority right now, then it makes sense to just go ahead and pay the taxes instead of locking the funds up in a DST or 1031. That's a personal trade-off, and there's no wrong choice there.

That said, there may still be a few ways to look at reducing taxes depending on your full picture. For example, if you or your husband own a business outside of real estate or have other sources of income, there could be additional tax planning opportunities worth exploring. And maybe if you’re charitable-minded, there are a few other things we could consider there as well.

Just some general thoughts — but it really depends on the full scope of your income and investment goals.