01:28 PM · Comments Off on Property investment against the stock market · Categories: News from Marbella Costa del Sol · Tags: , , ,

Over recent years bricks and mortar have been a favourite investment for the Spaniards, the thesis that the price of housing never goes down encouraged many to buy a flat with the intention of selling in the short term to achieve major gains, however, as by noted John Serrano the author of calm investor, a home that is not used is a bad investment and further believes that investing in a home costs more than to invest in the stock market.

The author challenges the myth of bricks and mortar as an investment with these eight arguments:

1. Housing is a valuable asset but a house that is not used is a bad investment,  “You have to paint it , fix it, maintain it, pay for electricity , water and taxes, if we estimate that the annual maintenance cost is 1% of its value, in a hundred years we will have spent on maintaining the property an amount equal to what it cost us.

2. Rented accommodation has been as profitable as shares in the last 100 years and should have earned an annual return of 6.08%, which is the actual appreciation rate of Dow Jones stocks in wall street in the last 100 years, allowing for dividends and adjusted for inflation.

3 . It is not true that house prices do not go down

4 . All investors can buy shares but it is not possible for everyone to purchase property, ” it makes no sense that I have three houses to rent and you have three more to rent to me “.

5 . The cost of investing in housing leads many to invest in the stock market, when buying property you pay a 7% transfer tax, on top of that you pay 1% and 3% in registration fees and notary costs. In total the cost ranges between 8% and 10% of the home value but the fees and expenses to buy shares ranges between 0.2% and 0.5%.

6. To buy a good house you need a lot of money, for this reason many people invest in low-quality housing in unattractive areas, which in the long term ends up not being profitable.

7. No housing investment tends not to diversify the majority of investors, they tend to put all their savings in a single investment.

8. To manage a portfolio of stocks is easier than to manage real estate, Serrano points out that buying or selling a home is more complicated and takes longer to do.

property investment spain

Property is a long term investment, shares are more short term