Real Estate – A Good Investment?

As you all know, I am a proponent of buying a home to raise a family or become an integral component of your community. The housing bubble was created in part by the financial industry qualifying buyers who normally would not have been able to purchase. And, in part by buyers thinking that buying a house was a short-term investment. Their business plan was to buy, flip and make money. The real estate industry is well into its third year of decline and maybe it is now a good time to buy. First and foremost as a home owner but is real estate a good investment?

Smartmoney.com recently posted an article outlining several reasons why it is a good time to buy a home.

Smart people are buying real estate:

Paraphrasing Warren Buffett ….. be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.

John Paulson, the hedge-fund manager who made $20 billion betting against the housing bubble said: “If you don’t own a home buy one, if you own a home, buy another one, and if you own two homes buy a third and lend your relatives the money to buy a home”.

Barbara Corcoran, Real Estate contributor to NBC’s Today Show - “We have a regular real estate miracle happening. We not only have record low prices, but we also have cheap money.”

Donald Trump – “I’m pretty sure this is a great time to go out and buy a house. And if you do, in 10 years you’re going to look back and say,” ‘you know, I‘m glad I listened to Donald Trump.’

Real Estate performs well during inflation
If you think we will have inflationary pressures in years ahead, you should consider buying real estate since holding an asset is the right strategy in an inflationary environment.

Demand is coming back
As housing goes…. So goes the economy. If jobs are created and unemployment starts to significantly decline, the demand for housing will skyrocket. This will cause a sharp rise in prices. This will most likely occur as interest rates increase and inventories decrease. There is a pent-up demand caused by the delay in family formations, less flexibility of families moving for work, and “fear” is replaced with optimism.

A house is a home and owning a home is the American Dream.