Advice sought re pension fund

[morethanspice]

Hi I’d appreciate any assistance re my situation. I’m recently divorced and unfortunately only have a pension fund of approximately 100k to show for it (long story)
I’m currently renting but harbour the desire to own a property ideally to rent out as I’m happy where I am and it’s cheap but I’m thinking rental income might be more reliable. I’m aware I can’t take the pension out without a large tax bill, I’m working in a low paid job but wondering if a. I take out the max I can per year for a few years so I have hard cash to invest.b I try to get a mortgage using the pension as income
I’d like to have a back up place to live and a property to leave to my children
For context I’m late fifties
In my area there are cheap properties under 100k

I believe you can take out 25% tax free, which you could put down as a deposit on a buy to let, but the rental income would probably entirely go on the interest on the mortgage so you wouldn't be receiving an income from the property yourself.

I'd get some proper financial advice. It's not an easy time to be a LL and the tax advantages of a pension far outweigh those of BTL at the moment. Your children can't inherit a mortgaged house and if capital growth isn't great in your area, I'd reconsider.

Check which fund your pension is invested in, the yield may be similar to a BTL.

Thanks for the replies! The tax free aspect was already taken out before I got the pension, again a long story and out with my control unfortunately. The pension is teetering but the trajectory has been more down than up in the last six months. Which would be easier to accept if I didn’t need to access it for a long time but I do.

You can move your pension into a better performing fund, you don't have to stay with the default. Is a DC or DB pension?

Move your pension to A better performing find.
Buy to let would be really bad move at the moment and capital growth is extremely unlikely for a few years.

Landlords are leaving the rental market in droves for many reasons.