Get Rich Fast (you chump)

[FinanceDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jay_Gatsby What's the expression? "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach?"

You're killing me.......

[bosco]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jay_Gatsby What's the expression? "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach?"

"and those who can't teach administrate."

[Hamlet]

You missed a step.

"Those who can't teach, teach Phy Ed."
"Those who can't teach Phy Ed., administrate."

My high school principal and vice-principal were ex-gym teachers

Quote:

Originally Posted by bosco "and those who can't teach administrate."

[FinanceDude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hamlet You missed a step. "Those who can't teach, teach Phy Ed." "Those who can't teach Phy Ed., administrate." My high school principal and vice-principal were ex-gym teachers

How about athletic directors? Isn't that a somewhat cushy job? In my high school,he got to pour the beer at the "secret" football parties........

[Jay_Gatsby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FinanceDude How about athletic directors? Isn't that a somewhat cushy job? In my high school,he got to pour the beer at the "secret" football parties........

Reminds me of the following line from Grease:

"If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter."

[Bestwifeever]

I always hear it was "Those who can't teach, teach education."

[skyline]

To the OP - remember that most people have very short term memory, even econ profs. In the 90's, you were a chump if you were in real estate and not stocks. In the last 7 years, you were a chump if you were in stocks and not real estate. The question is (unless you think you can time the market) what's the historic performance?

Even with leverage, real estate isn't a big winner when you look at the long term - most studies of property values spanning periods of 25-100 years show residential real estate returning around 3-4%, even when isolated to regional performance in areas like SF and NY, while equities return around 10-12% over the same period. With a 5x leverge, you can up real estate's return to around 15-20% historically, but then factor in property taxes and you're back to around 10-15% historically. And that's before all the transaction costs and maintenance costs that go into properties (that no one ever tells you about when they boast about their performance). Of course, you do need to add back rent and tax benefits, but in the end I think you get close to a wash (although my opinion is that stocks still come out ahead)

The whole locational/regional variation in performance is a red herring as well - think about it, if homes on the river with mountain views really performed consistently better than less desirable homes, then those homes would be 100's of times the cost of the lesser homes if they really appreciated faster in the long run (didn't someone own those properties decades/centuries ago? Weren't those properties more expensive back then? Did the actual ratio of the costs of those properties change significantly in the long run?). The fact that they don't points out that historically, they go through the same level of appreciation (although they start with higher initial appraised value)

I'm not knocking real estate - I own a great home that has more than tripled in value since I bought it in the late 90's. But I also own lots of equity and did amazing during the tech boom as well. They're both good assets to own. For me, it's more about volatility - stocks can drop 20% in one year, while real estate rarely falls more than 5% annually.

Now, the real question you should care about is whether you should now go into real estate today, given the current economic situation, and the fact that real estate has just wrapped up the single greatest boom period in US history? My opinion is NO WAY.