In addition to all of the very good advice in this thread, I will add I am a big fan of Dollar Cost Averaging. If you have a large amount to put into the market, don’t put it in to whatever fund you decide all at once, put it in on a monthly basis. This protects you, to some extent, from the market taking a dump the day after you buy, because you are always buying. And your cost at the end is an average of all the times you bought in, and is not so much tied to prices on the day you bought in.

This may involve some planning for moving money around, because you will want to keep the remainder in a good HYSA in the meantime.

Regulations on this will differ by state. The best move would be to find a local real estate lawyer. They wil instruct you on how to file all the proper paperwork with the local government, and also advise you on things you haven’t thought about, like how to structure your wills to make sure everyone is protected in the event something unfortunate happens to either of you.

Also don’t use this private transaction as an excuse to save money to skip any steps. Go get the title search and inspection done. You don’t want any surprises. If the inspection finds a fundamental problem, you might still go through with the purchase, but at least you’ll know up front what you’re in for.

Making any investment yearly at the same time is attempting to time the market, it’s a bet that the market will be lowest at that point vs the rest of the year. Otherwise, why pick Jan 1? Why not pick July 4? If the price is lower on Jul 4, you end up with more shares, as well as a small increase due to 6 months of interest.

When you DCA, you basically admit that you don’t know how prices are going to move, and you are spreading out your risk. Yes, DCA over 12 months may leave you with slightly less than if you put it all in on Jan 1, assuming the price was the lowest on Jan 1. But if you have monthly investments that whole time, it’s likely that at least one or two of those might have been bought at a lower price than Jan, and it may turn out DCA could result in more shares of whatever you are buying.

The “time in the market” adage applies over years, not months. On a scale of 10 years+, it doesn’t really matter whether you bought in Jan or July.

The theory is not based on interest rates, but rather tax loss harvesting. People have a better idea of what their tax liability might be at the end of the year, and it’s possible they might want to reduce their Capital Gains tax bill by selling positions that are negative to lock in a loss, offsetting some other gain. That means more selling in December, so it would make sense to buy as close to Jan 1 as possible, when the extra selling stops.

But it’s just another way to time the market, and timing the market is a bad strategy for the average investor. Just keep investing on your set schedule, and you will find that you still do OK, with much less drama.