Real Estate Versus Stock Investing

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Ten Advantages of Real Estate

Cash Flow

The chief thing here is that the property is self-maintaining as far as expenses go. It is a business model in itself – the income minus the outflow equals the cash flow. The expenses should first all be covered for the investment to make sense and secondly the property should generate a cash flow in order to add icing to the cake of property appreciation. When comparing real estate investing to stock investing, it is important to not only compare the national average real estate appreciation rate of 6% to the historic average stock market return of 10%, you must also factor in the cash flow received.

In addition, this is passive cash flow. Although you might have to handle tenant issues or arrange for repairs or do them yourself, your physical presence is not required 100% of the time in order to generate the income. In the stock universe you would have to generate this via dividends. Although this is not impossible to do, you must find healthy yields to match the cash flow return you would receive on a piece of real estate and monitor the stock for dividend cuts or “going out of business” drops.

Once your passive cash flow is equal to or greater than your expenses, you are financially free.

Control

In the stock universe you do not have much control over how the companies you own are managed – unless of course you are Warren Buffet who sits on the board of directors of some of the companies he owns. Sure you get a proxy vote but unless you own a large percentage of shares, this won’t amount to much. If you own Coke stock you could buy up all the Coke at your local super market in an attempt to ratchet up sales but I think we both would have to agree this would be futile.

In the real estate universe you can manipulate rents, you can screen tenants, you can landscape, you can throw a new coat of paint on the walls, you can physically drive up to the property. If rents drop in the area by $25 you can adjust accordingly to keep your vacancy rate low. If they go up, you can raise rents. In real estate you have much more control over the investment. In stocks, you can monitor and maintain control over the buy and sell decisions.

This also comments on the passivity of the investment. Without a property manager, the more control you exude over your piece of real estate and the less passive it becomes. Keep that in mind as well.

Appreciation

Real estate on average appreciates 6% nationally. Although this has not been the case recently, I use the long-term average for comparative purposes on stocks and property. Stocks appreciate by an average, long-term rate of 10% while real estate appreciates at 6%. Also, the beauty of real estate is that a tenant is paying down the mortgage and essentially buying the asset for you over time. The problem with the simple 10% versus 6% rate comparison, from a property investor’s point of view, is that it does not take leverage into consideration.

Leverage

If you put $20,000 down on a $100,000 property and it generates $3,000 a year in cash flow, what is your rate of return? It is $3,000/$20,000 or 15%.

If the property increases in value by 6%, how much have you gained?

Answer: $100,000 x 6% = $6,000.

How much of a rate of return is this over your initial investment?

Answer: $6,000/$20,000 = 30%

When you add this to your $3000 of cash flow, your true rate of return is $9,000/$20,000 or 45%.

If you took that money instead and invested it in a stock mutual fund, how much rate of return would you expect? Answer: 10% over the long haul.

Stocks 10%

Real Estate 45%

‘Nuff said.

Depreciation

This is one of those lovely phantom tax deductions you get to claim at the end of the year that will turn your rental money into 0% tax money – your earned income is taxed potentially at 50%, your portfolio income or dividend income is taxed at 15 – 20%, your passive or rental income can be taxed at 0%. This is how:

You get to depreciate residential real estate property over 27.5 years and commercial over 39 years. If you cash flow $20,000 out of your property but have depreciation of $25,000, you have a tax loss of $5,000 and no tax is paid on income. Sure, one could argue that the property is actually depreciating and generating a real repair cost, but repair costs are already factored in and come out of the cash flow.

The Depreciation Equation:

(Total Asset Value – Land Value) / Depreciable Years = Annual Depreciation

Refinance

If you increase the property value you can refinance it and withdraw the money tax free. Say you finance a $200,000 property and through a property improvement plan (you lower the vacancy rate, you increase rents based on a rent premium for ground floor apartments) the property is now worth $250,000. You can now refinance the property at $250,000 pay off the initial $200,000 and withdraw the $50,000 tax free.

Asset Protection

Two things here: insurance and incorporation. If a stock drops 50% in value, what protection do you have? Perhaps a stop loss order or a put option? If your investment property burns down, what protection do you have?

Answer: insurance

Also, the second form of protection is incorporation. Traditionally an LLC has been the most advantageous for property investors. By placing your property in this bucket you shield your personal assets should any one come after you with legal action.

1031 Exchanges

You can roll over property gains tax free by buying bigger properties using a 1031 exchange. The capital gains do not go away, they are still there. But, by using a 1031 exchange, you can continue to roll those gains into bigger and hopefully better properties tax free. If you finish and choose not to hold the last property or roll it, you will have tax consequences.

Hedge Against Inflation

Because real estate is a tangible asset, it will generally rise at the rate of inflation or higher. Historically inflation has been 4.1%. That means real estate, with its average, historical appreciation of 6% has beaten inflation by nearly 2%.

A Physical Asset

You can actually walk up to a piece of property. You can inspect it, you can visit the tenants, you can see cracks forming in the walls. With a stock, in a lot of respects, it exists out in the ether. Sure if you own Coke you can drink a Coke and you can go visit Coke headquarters in Atlanta, but the investment truly lives throughout the business model which you do not directly manage. A property on the other hand, can be managed directly by you.

To sum up, there are many advantages to real estate investing over stock investing and many analysts neglect to make a fair comparison between the two. Many merely compare the 6% appreciation in real estate to the 10% return in stocks. What they are chiefly leaving out are the benefits of passive cash flow, leverage and depreciation. Once these three factors alone are included in the mix, it is clear that real estate has some unique advantages over stocks. I do not wholeheartedly endorse real estate investing alone. I believe one must have a diversified investment strategy across different asset classes. It is not enough to have a bucket of mutual funds and claim diversification. It is important to have assets in stocks, real estate and business.

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