I didn't think this would happen, but it did. My future brother in law has finally convinced my mom to invest a substantial chunk of her retirement assets in an illiquid real estate venture. The rate of return on the rent is very small, maybe 3%. She won't have enough ownership to force the sale of the land if she needs her money back. She doesn't have faith in the judgement of one of the other partners.
Essentially, her outlook is this. Stocks don't look good, bonds are down a little... therefore this must be good.
I am a thousand percent against this. In my opinion, the only scenario in which this pays out for her is one in which the value of the property increases by 30-50% over the next 3-5 years and then they sell. It's happened before, maybe it'll happen again, right? You can't lose money on real estate, can you? It's guaranteed!
My sister has been pushing mom into this for a couple of months and it sounds like mom just got tired of resisting and is going to do it despite her misgivings. I really don't think she has any idea about what happens when you lose money with your family. As it is, I feel very much stabbed in the back. She personally stands to gain quite a bit if this goes well and loses nothing if it goes badly. A 73 year old widow should not be taking these risks.
If my future BIL showed up at my door I would not be able to control myself.
I thought about going down there and straightening things out, but mom is agreeing to this whole thing and has been informed about the downside. She's just not listening. Her greed has overcome her discipline.
It has become clear that my mom no longer trusts my judgement, and that my sister will do anything to get money. And that my new BIL is a snake charmer.
UPDATE:
I broke it down one more time for Mom in an email and it looks like the spell may be broken. Once you bust out the calculator it puts a lot of things into perspective. The phoenix rises from the ashes once again!
Now though, I need to figure out how to deal with mom. She doesn't use logic to solve problems and refuses to educate herself about basic things, and probably wouldn't sign a durable power of attorney. It's pretty frustrating. I kind of want to distance myself from her decisions. OTOH, she obviously has vipers whispering in her ear. Bottom line is that this is mom, I need to stand by her. She could have thrown me in a Dumpster when I was a baby if she wanted to, and I know for a fact that I cried a lot.