Whats a better investment? the stock market or real estate?
 

I want to start investing and dont know what to invest in. So besides porn, whats a better investment, stocks or real estate?

I'm hoping that some people who have actually made some money can answer this. I'm leaning towards real estate myself.
If I bought a place and had tenants in there paying my mortgage off for me I think that'd be fantastic.

Unfortunately I'm in Boston and because of the colleges, the real estate here is prohibitively expensive, so it's hard to get my foot in the door. So I was thinking stocks, sine the minumum to get into stocks is so low.

Not sure about your real estate market but I would look at FHA 3% purchases. Real estate is golden

right now prolly money markets.

a month ago i would have said go short taser which actually might be your best investment.

add short positions in financials and you could have a decent stock portfolio for when the market drops from the asset bubble caused by the good ole fed.

i'm not a 100% on a drop in the markets, but the possibility is there for a major correction sometime this year.

I live an hour south of Boston, your right real estate in and around Boston is expensive... Try buying in Rhode Island, its close enough, and not nearly as bad... Im planning on buying a 3 family house in a couple of months in the $250-300k range... All you need is a decent downpayment and your golden.

Real Estate is alot safer then playing the market

Real estate is a win situation...
The stock market is risky but you can make a lot of money in a short run and a bigger ROI.

Cash is a good investment now compared to stocks. Real estate is near historically high levels, it might keep going up a little but will probably level off or even go down like in the early 1990's when house prices dropped 10 to 20% in california.

see this thread

Stocks always do well over a very long term.

Personally though I still like real estate. There is only so much land in a city and it always increases in value if you buy smart. Most of my investment money is tied up in land.

Oh if I wanted I could get a mortgage on some, or use the equity for a loan and buy stocks if I desired. I just do not like having mortgages.

I hope they drop, i wanna buy :Graucho

I'd personally go in with both if you've got the money....Throw a little in the stock market and get a cheap peice of real estate and throw it up for rent.

Stocks can be risky but so can real estate...

Lunch is for wimps

Stocks can be very risky but highly profitable if you learn how to buy, trade and hold them well.

Real Estate is pretty safe in comparison, however you still can lose on the short term if you buy in an overheated sellers market and then it flips and becomes a buyers market.

The best investment in my opinion is starting and building your own businesses.

a long-short strategy could very well be best, but would prolly be hard for anyone here to pull off. if you're an accredited investor you could go with a hedge fund that has a 5+ year solid track record in market neutral stategies.

long reinsurers/drug companies(could short merck in a market neutral stategy) and short financials(but not potential takeover targets) and some REITS(but could go long in a solid REIT like mills corp)

80% failure rate though.

btw, since I dont know much about stocks, I was just going to get an index 500 fund (probably vanguard) and put my money into that and some blue chips and thats it. I dont like investing in small companies and risking it. I like solid investments, I dont like gambling.

OPM always on the risky ventures. Your own capital on the safer low risk ones.

This changes the odds, spreads the risk, increases the plays.

you could add investments in risky assets that have a low correlation with blue chip stocks. it would actually decrease the risk of your portfolio :)

property is best

Real estate definitely.

wow 12 to 0. Talk about a shutout, lol

well investing in real estate right now depends on your local market and if you have what it takes to manage the properties and choose the right ones. its not for everyone.

real estate values are inflated in a lot of markets

there are companies that will manage the properties for you... makes it a nice hands off kinda thing

but you still have to pick the right properties, plus management companies increase costs.

Just curious why would you ask on gfy which is a better investment. Do your own research. Maybe you'll learn a thing or two that will help. As for my opinion it depends how much capital you have to work with.. If you got a few million collecting dust. Move into some commercial property with a mix in the market. But otherwise, it depends on your knowledge, skills, and what you want to do or can do. If you only have a few K to play with youor options are limited to residental homes/duplexes you live in or securities.

stocks man but in some large company .. low % but no way of burning your money

why wouldn't I ask here? Some people here have made some money, why not learn from their experiences? It's free to ask.

dunno

at this point in the cycle, it's the stock market...

and the fact that so many GFYers are saying real estate means i'm right! :1orglaugh

Wit stability in mind, it's gotta be real estate

Here are some statistics that should answer this question for you that I heard on a financial investment radio show this morning:

Over the last 10 years the average real estate investment appreciated 74%. That is fucking awesome, but wait -

Over the same period the S&P 500 has appreciated 200%.

Put your long term money in stocks!

when 75% of GFY "investment gurus" pick real estate... you know it's time to sell the house and go super-long in equities (ie. the stock market for you ignorant types)

easton all asset types seem to be overvalued right now. even the stock market; small caps, large caps everything. all fueled by an irresponsible fed that has rates super low and aren't factoring in asset prices into the inflation equation.

thats why i would lean towards market neutral strategies until things clear up.

Depends on where you live and what your portfolio requirements are :thumbsup If you cant afford realestate, which can be a hell of a chunck of change in the right ares, stocks and such are much easier to get started in.

real estate in san diego.

agreed totally, that's why i trade foreign exchange futures on the CME

but the question was stock market or real estate... i'd go with F/X trading any day tho LOL

Damn near everyone in the nation who was considering (and able to) buy a home has bought one, and damn near everyone who had a single home with equity has refinanced OR they have sold their home and more often than not -- swapped it for a bigger one -- and bigger mortgage. In fact, some real estate investment "loopholes" actually encourage this.

Now shortly before the fed raised interest rates, Greenspan was pushing ARM's.

You do the math.

real estate is the best way to go and the best return. I know this is a sellers market, but its amazing on the money you can make on some of these properties. Don't just buy anything, find properties that have been on the market for over 3 months, make them crazy offers and you will be surprised on the deals you can get and just flip them. I have been doing it for years. I keep thinking its going to crash hard but it still hasn't and it is still paying off. I think in the next year or so you will find a lot of forclosures, so be ready to buy.

real estate is the way to go

Yeah Easton, i mean stocks can't fall down to $0, just like real estate.

Also good luck buying $1 million worth of stocks with $200k and an 800k loan too

:1orglaugh

Better real estate than stock market. Always too unpredictable!

As far as I know real estates in the US are a real good investment.

Well for stock investments you have to spend lots of time to get knowledge if you want to make real money with it and not only invest in some slow going big companies which more or less sure shots but aren't worth the risc anyway.

If you invest in stocks you should at least have a clue about the business area and where the company is going not some wallstreet newspaper recomment hot stock which will crash after everybody bought it :winkwink:

The pro point of stocks is that you can make money in good and in bad times if you know how to do it,just stay away from penny stocks :2 cents:

Like some famous guy once said.. they aren't making anymore land.

That's be the way I would go.

but you can make money when the stock market goes up or down.

real estate doesn't have the volatility, but it also doesn't have the long term gains.

now if you're truly good at real estate investing you can make good money, but you also need cash flow just in case. you don't just buy properties and deposit the profits into the bank machine.

Real estate for me. Stock market gives me a headache!

If you like Real Estate so much... what's wrong with investing in company that specializes in RE investing?

I think RE estate is an alright investement too, but in my opinion it involves too much messing around.

You have to find the tenants, some don't pay, when they move out you have to waste a day or 2 showing new potential tentants around, things break, plus finding a new real estate isn't exactly a matter of calling up your broker and telling him but 1000 shares of XXX company... etc...

I don't understand how anyone can say the stock market is a better investment, really.

Real estate:

Put 10% down on a property, get tenants to pay the mortgage plus enough to cover expenses/repairs/insurance.. even if the property goes up 5% per year, that's a 50% return on what you actually invested.

I realize it's more complicated than that but just giving those figures for simplicity.

This is true. You don't have to worry about the stocks and everything. Just be sure the tenants pay on time.

Buy Land, God isn't making anymore:winkwink:

Mutual stock funds have ALWAYS outperformed RE funds, on a 20+ year level. This is a historic fact.

if it was that easy everyone would do just that.