You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

hyporational comments on Open thread, September 15-21, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: gjm 15 September 2014 12:24PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (339)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: hyporational 17 September 2014 12:57:26PM *  2 points [-]

IIRC real estate prices in the US rise about 1% per year inflation adjusted while stock markets rise about 7 % on average. An average person needs a huge loan to invest in real estate and go all in which means zero spread of risk. Real estate is also relatively illiquid not only because of practical reasons but because the return of investment depends on timing of the transaction. You're shit out of luck if you need money while the price of your house is plummeting.

How should one find the 'best' one?

Depends on your risk tolerance. The bigger the index, the lower the risk and the lower the possible returns, generally. Also bigger index funds are usually more liquid. Transaction costs matter quite a lot unless you have a big lump sum to invest, and even then you should consider dollar cost averaging.

Comment author: ESRogs 17 September 2014 10:33:46PM 8 points [-]

An average person needs a huge loan to invest in real estate

That's not true. It's easy to get exposure to real estate through REITs. For example, through my wealthfront.com portfolio, I'm invested in Vanguard's US REIT ETF, VNQ.

Comment author: hyporational 18 September 2014 03:53:13AM 5 points [-]

I stand corrected.

Comment author: roystgnr 17 September 2014 03:50:13PM 6 points [-]

IIRC real estate prices in the US rise about 1% per year inflation adjusted while stock markets rise about 7 % on average.

YRC. I thought you were forgetting to adjust the stock market returns for inflation, so I went to hunt for more accurate numbers, but apparently 1950-2009 S&P500 inflation-adjusted returns (counting not just price rise, but dividends) averaged to 7% per year.

Comment author: hyporational 17 September 2014 06:08:45PM 2 points [-]

Thanks. If you care about transaction costs you should probably invest in funds that reinvest dividends automatically.

Comment author: niceguyanon 19 September 2014 06:59:52PM 1 point [-]

IIRC real estate prices in the US rise about 1% per year inflation adjusted...

There is also real estate taxes just for holding the asset and upkeep expenses too! But to be fair, asset appreciation isn't the only return on real estate, many investment properties are income producing assets. But then again you can just get that exposure from REITS anyway.