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> But as you say, at least real estate tends to hold its value somewhat. Expensive land usually does appreciate (in some areas, only until interest rates go up
by hgsgm 4y ago
> But as you say, at least real estate tends to hold its value somewhat.
Expensive land usually does appreciate (in some areas, only until interest rates go up?), but the house on the land is a money pit.
- noduerme 4y agoIn America, the best investments in the past 100 years have been structures like car dealerships built on cheap land around the exurbs of major cities. You get commercial use of the structure, wait 20 years for it to be surrounded by residential development, then sell the land. This, working hand in glove with the driving and commuting culture, had been the middle class gear in the system attached to the resource extraction itself. I'm not here to pass moral judgments on this method of creating wealth, although to me unnecessary mineral extraction for energy is largely fraught with moral hazard. But to say that real estate isn't an investment is to consider the past two centuries of American economic growth to be a temporary aberration, and I don't think you can do that in light of the degree of economic reliance that has grown up around it.