6 Good Reasons to Invest in Real Estate
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We have already discussed in this blog how to invest in real estate. But I have not covered the reasons to invest in Real Estate in the first place. These reasons may make you want (or not) to invest in Real Estate. This is something I am still wondering whether I should invest in it or not. I know there are several reasons that make Real Estate interesting as an investment. But I have never gotten to the point of starting to invest in it.
Today, I am focusing on investing in real estate for income. This is not about owning your own house. If you live inside the house, you will not get income from it.
In this article, we will see six reasons to invest in Real Estate. Many reasons make Real Estate an interesting investment. But that does not mean it is necessary for everyone to invest in it. On the other hand, I believe it is important to know what the investment offers.
If you have other reasons to invest in Real Estate, please let me know!
1. Diversification
The first reason to invest in real estate is to diversify your investments. You want your investments to be diversified. The reason is simple: diversification strengthens your portfolio, given some events. If there is a stock market crash, your other investments may still hold. This is why you should not invest in stocks of a single country. I believe it is important to invest in many countries.
For the same reason, it is not a good idea to invest only in Real Estate. If the Real Estate market crashes, the stock market may not crash. Generally, there is no correlation between both markets. However, they are still both tied to the economy. If the economy does not do well, they are likely to both drops.
I said the markets might not crash for both events. This is because, sometimes, both markets are crashing together. In that case, the diversification in your portfolio will not help much.
2. Extra realized income
One of the reasons to invest in real estate is that it will bring you some realized income.
When you invest in stocks, you get very little income from it. You are mainly hoping for some capital gains in the future. Not until you sell will you get the money. You may get some dividends, of course. But unless you invest in dividends, you will not get something very large. On the other hand, the real estate market is generating more income than the stock market.
For instance, if you buy a property and rent it to someone, you will get some income month after month. This is the form of real estate that will generate the most income. If you invest in a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), you will get more income than investing in dividends stocks.
Having this extra income will greatly speed up your journey to Financial Independence. We have seen that growing the income could be very beneficial. If you have some income in retirement, it will help you reduce the number you need to retire. You can cover some of your expenses using this (mostly) passive income.
There is something that you need to be aware of. Extra income generally means more taxes. Sometimes, capital gains are more efficient than real estate income. This is the case in Switzerland, where capital gains are not taxed. But here, dividends are taxed.
3. Increase earnings
Another advantage of investing in real estate is that you can potentially increase your earnings. Some real estate projects have more than 10% yearly returns. And buying the property yourself and renting it can have even more returns. However, do not forget that there are some work and some costs involved in managing a house.
Some people also count on the house gaining value. Some houses can indeed gain a lot in value in a few years. However, there is nothing guaranteed about a house gaining in value. You should be very careful about expecting some increase in value. It could happen, but it could as well go down. In some cities, the price of real estate crashed. The rent price can also crash as well. Most people consider that their income is fixed and will not go down. But this is not true. The area in which the property is could lose value.
4. Reduce volatility
Another reason to invest in real estate is reduced volatility. Generally, the real estate market is less volatile than the stock market. Of course, there have been some events in real estate with sudden swings in price. But the stock market is much more volatile. There can be days with more than 10% price swings. While days like this are also possible in the stock market, they are not as common.
If you invest some of your money in real estate, you may reduce the volatility of your entire portfolio. If you are far from retirement, you may not care much about volatility. But if you are closer or retired, volatility is more dangerous. And if you are more risk-averse, you may also like the security of the reduced volatility.
5. Use Leverage
One of the reasons to invest in real estate is that you can easily use leverage.
Investing with leverage is when you borrow money to invest it. You can do that with stocks. This is called investing with margin. You could buy ten shares and pay only for half, your broker lending you the money for the other half. Once you sell, you pay back the broker, plus interests.
Real Estate investing is almost always done with leverage. You pay the down payment, and the banks pay the rest. If you get a rental income higher than the interest you pay to the bank and the opportunity costs of the money you invest, you are making a profit.
Real Estate is one of the cheapest forms of leverage you can use. These days, the interest rates are very low, at least in Europe and the USA. That means you can get a lot of extra income for a little down payment. Effectively, the leverage acts as a multiplier on the income you can get. Many very rich people have used leverage to get where they are now. For instance, even Warren Buffet, the famous investor, used leverage to make more money.
Now, do not forget that leverage is still a debt. If the value of the real estate you invest in plummets, you will get in trouble. In that case, the bank will ask for more money to cover the loss of value. In some cases, this could lead to the loss of property. This is the same with stocks. You need to be extra careful about using leverage.
6. Tangible asset
Finally, the last reason to invest in real estate is if you invest in physical real estate, you have a tangible asset. When you have shares in a company, you only have a small contract giving you some rights to the company. However, a real estate asset is real. You can see it and easily know what it is made of.
This does not matter to everyone. But it matters for some people. If you want to have some tangible assets, then real estate is a very good investment. However, this is only true if you own some assets yourselves. If you invest in a REIT or even crowd-investing, you do not directly own the asset. You only own some pieces of a lot of assets. This makes it much less tangible, in my opinion.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many reasons to invest in real estate. But you do not have to invest in real estate. I feel it is more a personal preference. I think a small allocation of your investments into Real Estate is a good thing for diversification. And the cheap leverage can make it a really nice income generator.
However, I am not a big believer in Real Estate. Some people like it a lot and invest almost only in it. I do not see myself owning Real Estate properties. I may invest in Real Estate. But that probably will not be in physical assets. In 2019, I plan to try to invest in crowd real estate investing. But I have not given that much thought.
But I think it is still a good investment. If you are a serious investor, you need to understand the differences between the real estate market and the stock market.
To learn more about Real Estate Investing, read about The Different Ways to Invest in Real Estate.
What do you think? Do you invest in Real Estate? How? Do you have any more reasons to invest in Real Estate?
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Hello,
what do you think to buy your own property as diversification?
Nice article, it’s a very good abstract of the main raisons to invest in real estate.
I would add a 7th reason : inflation protection. In the next years, even in Switzerland inflation will return.
If you like to chase some costs, the condominium ownership (PPE in French) is an excellent playground ! For my parents, I was able to reduce by 8% the costs. In my personal case, I’m struggling a lot, but there is so much you can do.
It would be a great article to be written ;)
Hi Torvi,
It’s a good point that real assets like real estate are generally yielding at least inflation. But there could be bubbles in the real estate markets that could offset that advantage.
Do you mean that PPE is a good way to reduce costs and risks compared to buying a house or a full property?
Hi,
PPE is for many people the only way to start investing in the real state. I bought my apartment when I was 29 and the only “affordable” was to buy it in a PPE (houses in my area are more than 1,2KKCHF …).
Nevertheless, as PPE is managed by many people, that means you will find exactly the same errors that people do in their own finances in the PPE management… When you try to optimize your own expenses, it’s hard, but trying to explain to the others that their choices were/are bad it’s even harder !
if I could, I would only buy a full property and managed it by myself.
So far, in my case, owning this apartment saves my about 800 CHF/month vs a rental, but I’m spending lot of time and effort to reduce costs within the PPE.
Hi Torvi,
Thanks for the info. It makes sense indeed that it’s probably easier to get started but more difficult to be optimal since it requires talking with many people.
Thanks for sharing and well done on saving 800 CHF per month!
What is a PPE? Is this in Switzerland or France?
I am not sure this concept exists elsewhere, it’s French for Propriété par Etage (litterally property per floor in English), in Switzerland. It means that all the shares parts of a property are co-owned while each apartment is owned by a single owner.
Hello Poor Swiss,
Thanks for the post, I enjoyed the summarized advantages of real estate investing. I am surprised you have not invested in real estate yourself, given your persuasive summary. Certainly it strongly depends on the vehicle through which you get exposure to real estate – it need not be a physical property.
I have been struggling to find suitable physical assets with attractive valuations – and have been reading a lot about this issue in other blogs. At the same time, I am deeply convinced of your arguments around diversification (esp. away from the stock market) and income / low volatility. This brings me to the conclusion that not investing in real estate is not an option.
All the best – keep pushing on your amazing blog!
Cheers,
MFF
Hi MFF,
Haha. Actually, it kind of convinced me to start investing in real estate in 2019. For now, I do not plan to invest a lot of money. But I will invest a little in a crowd-investing platform. However, crowd-investing real estate in Switzerland is not really attractive. I will need to do more research.
Good luck finding a physical asset with a good valuation in Switzerland. I think it is becoming increasingly difficult. But as you said, it can be a good thing. It is just much more difficulties than simply investing in stocks.
Thanks for stopping by :)
I’m still on the fence about getting an actual property. For now, I get maybe the better alternative: investing in REITs (Real Estate Investment Trust).
Hi Mr. FTF,
For now, I am just at the beginning of my journey and therefore quite far from being able to buy a rental property. I plan to start crowd real estate investing in 2019. And I may invest in REIT as well.
It is a good alternative indeed! Good luck with your investing!
Thanks for stopping by :)
Nice post, I too like real estate for these reasons. But so far I have not been able to purchase a second property. The current prices make cash flow very hard to get. To prevent getting burned, I will only buy something when I can get a nice cash flow.
Hi B,
Yes, I agree that the current prices are not optimal to get nice cash flow. And shopping for a rental property is a very big deal, it should not be taken lightly! Good luck finding one that suits you :)
Thanks for stopping by :)