<prompt> Human: Hi all,First off, Im posting on behalf of my parents. Obviously they have a comfortable financial situation, but Id like to get some thoughts on it. Neither of them grew up in wealthy families, and though theyve done very well, Id like to get some alternative perspectives. The vast majority of my parents money is tied up in property. Several rental properties with rents that both cover the mortgages and bring in, altogether, around 50Kyear, as well as around 2.5M in my parents primary residence: an old farmhouse on some valuable property. Altogether, approximately 4M of their assets after subtracting liabilities is in property. Half of the rest is in cash in various forms, mostly in stocks in their investment accounts. The rest is in various other illiquid forms possessions, etc. Both of my parents are approaching the traditional retirement age, though theyre both still working. Their combined income is around 275K, with an additional 50K profit from their rental properties. Though it varies considerably from year to year, they spend, on average, around 125Kyear. This includes the occasional nice vacation and helping out familygiving gifts. Anyways, heres my concern: my parents -- especially my mom -- dont like the stock market. They view it as gambling, regardless of how educated you are. I agree with this to an extent, but they tend to view every stock as an Enron, or, lately, a GTAT the latter of which is more fair, since I did own a large amount of GTAT and they owned a little themselves. Essentially, they believe that property is foolproof as it has worked very well for them, and equities -- stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc. -- are inherently risky and should be minimally invested in. I should probably clarify that I live in an area that has had inflationary real estate for decades. Its a place where people have been saying for years that the bubble will burst any time now, but it never has -- even during the recession it wasnt too negatively impacted. What Im looking for is some financial and more general life advice. My parents are getting older, and they do all of the work on the rental properties themselves. Theyve finally started to talk about selling some or all of them, and Id like to have some informed opinions to advise them of. Should we hold on to the properties? Diversify a bit? And ifwhen theyre ready to sell, I want to be ready to propose something to them as an alternative to just letting the money sit in the bank. Thanks!  <response>: If your parents have a lifetime of knowledge and experience and know what they are doing in real estate they are probably correct in keeping a overweight portion of their net worth there. Particularly if you subtract out their homestead as an investment. I do agree it is important for them to make preparations based on their age though. Since I assume they will be retiring at this time it is perfectly acceptable to let the money just sit in a bank, though preferably in bonds or a bond - heavy diversified portfolio. 