Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?
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@Pete-S good info. I kind of forgot that, but I've seen that before. Home ownership for the bulk of society is a relatively recent thing. For a long time, something like 1% of England owned all the homes and everyone else has to rent.
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@Pete-S said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@Dashrender said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@Dashrender said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
is that where most rentals have come from?
Most rentals existed long before 2008. The rental market has always been very large.
Oh, I'm sure it's been longer than 2008 - but when? When did mass rentals enter the scene?
I guess they really started in the beginning when companies built factory based towns. The company built the houses for their employees so they would have some place to live. etc.A really long time ago (in the US). Most people used to be renters but after WW2 the majority have been homeowners.
Right now (2022) it's sits at around 65%.
Data is from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/Publications/pdf/HUD-7775.pdflol - it was almost the majority for the first half of the chart... the increase is way under 50% increase after the war.
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@Dashrender said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@Pete-S said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@Dashrender said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@Dashrender said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
is that where most rentals have come from?
Most rentals existed long before 2008. The rental market has always been very large.
Oh, I'm sure it's been longer than 2008 - but when? When did mass rentals enter the scene?
I guess they really started in the beginning when companies built factory based towns. The company built the houses for their employees so they would have some place to live. etc.A really long time ago (in the US). Most people used to be renters but after WW2 the majority have been homeowners.
Right now (2022) it's sits at around 65%.
Data is from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/Publications/pdf/HUD-7775.pdflol - it was almost the majority for the first half of the chart... the increase is way under 50% increase after the war.
By "almost the majority" you mean it was the clear minority? Almost the majority is a very, very weird way to stay that renting was the absolute dominant option up until 1950.
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For example, if you have a group of ten options and first and second place are way ahead of all the others, you might say that second place was nearly the leader.
But when you have a field of two, and second place is the clear loser in last place, it's weird to say.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@Dashrender said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@Pete-S said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@Dashrender said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@Dashrender said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
is that where most rentals have come from?
Most rentals existed long before 2008. The rental market has always been very large.
Oh, I'm sure it's been longer than 2008 - but when? When did mass rentals enter the scene?
I guess they really started in the beginning when companies built factory based towns. The company built the houses for their employees so they would have some place to live. etc.A really long time ago (in the US). Most people used to be renters but after WW2 the majority have been homeowners.
Right now (2022) it's sits at around 65%.
Data is from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/Publications/pdf/HUD-7775.pdflol - it was almost the majority for the first half of the chart... the increase is way under 50% increase after the war.
By "almost the majority" you mean it was the clear minority? Almost the majority is a very, very weird way to stay that renting was the absolute dominant option up until 1950.
I do not agree with you, Scott.
I think that "almost the majority" is very legit term 45%-48% and this subject (housing). These are not presidential elections so that you have "loser" with 47,8%.It is not weird to say that 47,8% is "almost the majority" especially when you take into account that many people are forced to be renters.
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@Pete-S
I think we should understand few things, for USA home ownership rates from 1890.-1940.:- Number of owned units (not rented) rose from 6,1 million in 1890. to 15,2 million in 1940. - thats 2,5x more units owned
- Much smaller percent of people have had an oportunity to choose between buying and renting. Mortgage loans were not broadly available to working class before WW2. Retail sector in commercial banking developed with IT developement and cheaper data and financial processing in banks. So
- Many people (now and before) buy homes later then they would like to, because they want to save more money for buying, or they wait for better or safer jobs etc.
I want to say that statistical percentage of ownerhip does not tells us what people prefer, they just show us actual situation.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@Pete-S good info. I kind of forgot that, but I've seen that before. Home ownership for the bulk of society is a relatively recent thing. For a long time, something like 1% of England owned all the homes and everyone else has to rent.
England was feudal country and global imperial country with rich aristocracy. So it is common that small percent of aristocracy owned almost all of the real estate.
It was not choice for other 99% of population
USA has completely different history of housing.
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@Mario-Jakovina said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
I want to say that statistical percentage of ownerhip does not tells us what people prefer, they just show us actual situation.
I think he posted that in response to @Dashrender asking where rentals had come from as if they were a recent invention and that they had not existed in any number before the last few decades. He was just showing that they've been common historically and are not some new thing that just popped up recently.
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@Mario-Jakovina said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
USA has completely different history of housing.
Not all that different actually. In super rural areas the poor had chances at housing. In cities and the east coast colonial areas, the landed aristocracy was still a thing.
But the POINT was that rentals were more than 50 years old.
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@Mario-Jakovina said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
It is not weird to say that 47,8% is "almost the majority" especially when you take into account that many people are forced to be renters.
It's a misleading term to evoke a false emotion plain and simple. It's not "almost a majority", it's not even half. Saying "last place is almost first place" is in any situation weird and misleading.
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@Dashrender said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
How do rentals come into being?
Renting is normal for every assets.
If someone has extra appartment, and I want to use one, we can either sell/buy or rent.Renting is not universaly better or worse than owning. It depends on your personal situation (plans, desires, financial abilities...)
Same for money. If you need money, you go to bank, and they rent you a money (interest is renting income for money)
Some people who have extra money invest in real estates for renting (that is main part of this topic)
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@Mario-Jakovina said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
These are not presidential elections so that you have "loser" with 47,8%.
I have no idea what that means. The presidential elections are not a yes or no choice where one wins and one doesn't. And when discussing if something exists historically being the majority is a huge deal when the supposition is that it wasn't invented yet.
Here in the real world when looking at two options, the "loser" or "last place" is anything with less than 50.anything. Black and white. There's no grey area there. Pretending that the minority choice is "almost" the majority choice is crazy. The more you try to make the loser sound good, the better the winner sounds because now we can say "sure, buying was nearly the majority, but renting was ahead by a landslide"
What?
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@Mario-Jakovina said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
Renting is normal for every assets.
Right, but we were asked to demonstrate that.
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@Dashrender said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
How do rentals come into being?
....
I know that was a big part of the 2008 crash. .....
is that where most rentals have come from?This is what was being answered. Dash was thinking that rentals were a rare thing historically and came about potentially as recently as 2008. Not that they were invented then, but that the rental market arose after 2008.
Pete's point was that the rental market was WAY larger in the past and that today's rentals are neither new or as popular as they used to be. Dash was thinking that rentals were rare and now were common. But in reality, for whatever reason it doesn't matter, rentals were more common and only recently has buying become a really big leader.
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@Mario-Jakovina said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
Renting is not universaly better or worse than owning. It depends on your personal situation (plans, desires, financial abilities...)
Right, that was the entire point of the post. Because offline there was a strong argument that buying was basically a guaranteed windfall and that only crazy situations could not make you lots of money and that any statistics should show that you just get crazy rich by owning property. But reality is anything but that. On average, over all time, owning property is a struggle to be profitable.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
Pretending that the minority choice is "almost" the majority choice is crazy.
You have no proof that it was minority choice, as I explained in my previous post.
Actually, I claim that majority in 19th century would choose to own -
@Mario-Jakovina said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
Pretending that the minority choice is "almost" the majority choice is crazy.
You have no proof that it was minority choice, as I explained in my previous post.
Actually, I claim that majority in 19th century would choose to ownChose is a financial term and you can determine it by what was done. Unless it was illegal to buy, then it was a choice. That people couldn't afford it, or didn't want to do it, isn't relevant to the conversation. But in financial terms, being unable to afford something is a form of not wanting. That's how that term is used financially.
And using "impossible" just because you perceive it doesn't make that even remotely true. It could be, but it's unlikely. Just because renting gave more options doesn't make owning impossible. We can guess that renting was financially more accessible. But that is the entire point. Affordability or being within reach financially is what made it more attractive as a choice.
You are stating it more as a proxy for being rich. People wish that they could buy houses, lots of them, because that would make them rich. It's being rich that they want to be, not home owners. Yes, people with that they were richer than they were (are.) That's a totally different concept and not relevant here.
We also know from historical accounts that the uber rich would commonly rent not buy because it gave them flexibility. So we know this isn't a poor / out of reach thing at least exclusively.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
Right, that was the entire point of the post. Because offline there was a strong argument that buying was basically a guaranteed windfall and that only crazy situations could not make you lots of money and that any statistics should show that you just get crazy rich by owning property. But reality is anything but that. On average, over all time, owning property is a struggle to be profitable.
I agree with you a lot here.
You just need to have in mind that keeping the value against inflation is not so small thing.
Cash have a HUGE weakness here. -
@Mario-Jakovina said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
Right, that was the entire point of the post. Because offline there was a strong argument that buying was basically a guaranteed windfall and that only crazy situations could not make you lots of money and that any statistics should show that you just get crazy rich by owning property. But reality is anything but that. On average, over all time, owning property is a struggle to be profitable.
I agree with you a lot here.
You just need to have in mind that keeping the value against inflation is not so small thing.
Cash have a HUGE weakness here.Yes, but in America especially, we don't really compare in terms of cash when discussing. Of course, that's one factor. But cash is a baseline.
What we'd really talk about is value versus the market. And that's what makes home ownership really bad. Given the chart, basically it just held against inflation and nothing more. That implies that it lost against an Index by 5-10% which means compared to the reasonable market baseline, the real estate game loses a lot.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is Real Estate Actually a Good Investment on Average?:
But in financial terms, being unable to afford something is a form of not wanting. That's how that term is used financially.
Sorry, Scott, but this is "crazy to say" if I say in your terms.
I need to go to work now...
