Investments

Financial journalist and author Mary Holm is our regular money and investement expert and today she's looking specifically at investments. She says people often do lots of research before getting into an investment, but they take too little notice of how they will be able to get out of it again when they want their money. Some investments are pretty easy to get out of. The purpose of the stock exchange is to make it straightforward to sell your shares for the best price being offered that day, as a listener points out in an email. But it can be much harder to sell shares in companies not listed on the stock exchange, as another listener has found out. How easy it is to sell property depends very much on the market at the time. Sometimes properties are sold, at a good price, on the day they list. Sometimes they take months to sell, at what the seller regards as a disappointing price. Don't assume, when you buy, that the property market will always be buoyant. Bonds are like shares. If they are listed on the stock exchange, you can sell them - although you will probably get a higher or lower price than what you paid for them. That depends on what has happened to interest rates since you bought.