Real Estate vs Stocks Which is Better (You Might Be Surprised )

Post on: 26 Июнь, 2015 No Comment

From time to time, investors need to pause the game and ask themselves: Is this the best use of my money and time? Ive met people who are so focused on one investment that they rule out other possibilities.

(No, I dont know why were in a cave.)

Since Im doing real estate full time now, it seems an ideal opportunity to give myself a sanity check. I thought Id share my process with the nice folks here on BiggerPockets .

To figure out if real estate is the best use of my money and time, I first had to pick something to compare it to. Why not stocks? To simplify things, I looked at the S&P 500 (a stock index used as a baseline by many hedge funds).

S&P Versus Home Prices

Want to see something scary? Assume you invested $100 in both the S&P 500 and a typical house in 1975. How much would each of them be worth in 2013?

Note. Throughout this article, Im going to be referencing the Home Price Index (HPI). This index is tracked by the FHFA and loosely follows changes in the typical home price (clever name, isnt it?).

Wowzers! Not only is the $100 invested in the S&P worth more, its worth triple! Even during the two recent crashes, it was worth double.

The result is clear: say screw it and dump your money in the stock market.

Hold on a second Speedy, weve left out a few variables.

Dividends vs. Real Estate

Many companies in the S&P 500 issue dividends: they give you money every so often for being a faithful shareholder. So, we should add those to our chart, right?

We could, but itll just make matters worse. Is there income from your real estate investments we can include?

Youre not buying a home hoping for appreciation, are you? Youre making money every year on the real estate you own. Maybe youre a landlord, maybe youre a flipper, or maybe you grow weed in the basement (dont do this). Either way, youre getting an annual return on your investment. Lets toss this in to offset the S&Ps head start.

The two things were going to add are:

S&P Historical Dividends
Annual cash flow from our real estate investment.

How much annual cash flow? Well, how much do we need to match the S&P 500?

Over 14%!

Can you make 14% every year? Perhaps for a while. For 40 years? Unlikely. Hedge fund managers would kill for consistent 14% returns. Heck, the fourth richest man in the world, Warren Buffet, managed 20% a year for the 40 years hes been investing.

However, there is one more thing we can include to help real estate compete with stocks.

Reinvestment of Stocks vs. Real Estate

Up to this point I assumed you invested $100 back in 1975 and never added more to it. You used the dividends/distributions to do things like, I dont know, live.

What if instead you reinvested every penny you received. Does this make a difference? What annual returns on your real estate investment did you need to match the S&P 500?

Just over 6% a year.

Side Bar. I want to take a moment and draw your attention to that scale on the left. It doubled. That $100 is now worth $4,500. Remember how your math teacher went on and on about the power of compounding? Heres a real life example.

Whether you decide to invest in stocks, real estate, or stamps, the most important thing to do is START.

Back to the lecture at hand. Over the last 40 years you needed 6% annual real estate cash flow for your to break even with the S&P 500 returns. 6% is more doable than 14%; however, you must to be diligent to reinvest those proceeds.

Factoring in Time

So our goal is to beat 6% return a year. Lets get to it!

Not so fast. We want to see if its worth our money and time .

Assume the average numbers weve been looking at are correct for this year (they wont be). If you put your money in the S&P 500 this is the equivalent of investing in real estate with a 6% distribution. (That statement isnt strictly speaking accurate, but I dont want to complicate this simple example with more math).

Now lets say you invest $50,000 in real estate, then you bust your hump and get 10% annual cash flow for the year. How much extra money did you get?

Profit from hard work (Real estate 10%) $5,000

Profit from no work (S&P 500 6%) $3,000

Extra cash earned $2,000

Is that worth your time? Would you be ahead to get a part time job and invest more in the stock market? Would it change if you had $100,000 to invest? $200,000? If your return was 15%? 20%? How much extra risk are you willing to take?

The answers to these questions depend on your situation; I cant help you out.

Ive argued this before, but Ill say it again: investing in real estate makes sense if you are large. Economies of scale are a wonderful thing. If youre just starting out, it takes time and effort and there are other avenues which pay you more per hour. If you get larger and want to get into real estate, find someone who has an established track record and invest along with them.

Wrap It Up

I started this article by asking Is this the best use of my money and time? So whats my answer?

For me, right now, yes, it is. **phew** Were getting a high return and invested enough to make it worthwhile.

Remember, this can change faster than you can say sellers market. If I were back in the 1980s when government debt yielded 15% a year I would be shocked if I arrived at the same conclusion.

Criticisms

I know Im risking the ire of BiggerPocketers with this post. Lets preempt a few of the criticisms.

You forgot that you can borrow money to buy homes.

Its much easier and cheaper to borrow money on stocks than real estate: lower loan origination fees, no appraisals, less time commitment, etc. If anything, including margin will make investing in real estate look worse.

Dont forget you pay commission every time you buy a stock.

Real estate transactions cost much more than stock transactions. You can buy a stock for under $5. If you enroll in a DRIP program to automatically reinvest your dividends, there is no purchase cost.

Kenny, you chose the wrong dates! You should have started in the year XXXX.

You could be right. I chose these dates because it gives me enough data and includes a number of volatile environments.

That and it was the easiest data to find.

Drop me a line and Ill be more than happy to send you my raw analysis.

Real estate is great for taxes. Shouldnt you be factoring that in?

Very astute. Ive even written articles discussing how good real estate tax benefits are. However, long term dividends are taxed at 15%, which isnt light years better than what you get with real estate. Not to mention if you invest in stocks through a 401(k) the first $17,500 (for 2013) is tax free. I figured Id leave it as an exercise for the reader.

Wellthat and figuring out historical tax rules and a reasonable investor bracket sounded time consuming and boring.

I invest in area XYZ and it has much higher appreciation than this HPI thing shows.

You can make a similar argument about picking penny stocks. Or slot machines. Once appreciation becomes a factor in your investment criteria, it stops being an investment and starts being a gamble. Buy something if youll make money without the price going up. Profits above that are just gravy.

HPI Data from FHFA and S&P 500 Data from NowAndFutures.Com

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