Hi there,
Three interesting nuggets on this one. One, is that the typical nature of speculative markets like real estate and stocks is that when everybody is talking about one market as the “safe” investment relative to another, that is usually a bearish indicator that all of the optimism has been priced into the market. Or put another way, when everyone is talking about real estate, it is time to buy stocks. When everyone is talking about stocks, it is time to buy real estate.
Two is that when people talk about risk factors, it is important to talk apples to apples. There is a big difference between the investor who is buying stocks for all cash versus on margin (leveraged). One can invest and hold. The other is in deep doo-doo if the market turns. Similarly, there is a big difference between buying a primary residence based on payments you can afford versus investment real estate that you assume will gain in value or will realize rental income appreciation. Again, one can buy and hold, whereas the other is in deep doo-doo if the market turns.
Three is that the typical analysis that I have seen play out in both real estate and stock speculation is that the investor who is sitting with great paper gains, has a meme that plays in their head that says, “Well if things turn and I lose 20-30% of my value, I am unhappy but not sunk.” They don’t unfortunately play bubble scenarios where 60% of total portfolio value evaporates and figure out what that means for them in terms of cash flow. Having been in real estate professionally during the SEC crisis and seeing many, many sophisticated developers lose everything, and having been a tech entrepreneur in the bubble and seen mostly paper (but no less painful) doomsday outcomes play out, I would STRONGLY encourage all investors to add such a scenario to their thinking as those outcomes really suck big time. A level set on income producing real estate investing is that typical market rents only account for roughly 50 cents on the dollar of what acquisition values are going for so the market is disproportionately pricing appreciation into the equation. Appreciation goes down, supply sits and then increases in a market where rents are generally fairly soft
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