As retirement draws near, the instinct to anchor one's future in something tangible — a property, a tenant, a steady rent cheque — is deeply human. But for a New Zealand couple five years from retirement with $120,000 to invest, financial columnist Mary Holm offers a quieter wisdom: that the assets which feel most solid can, in later life, become the heaviest to carry. The old arithmetic of rental investment has shifted, and what once looked like a foundation may now function more like a trap.