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Inflation – The Secret to Building Wealth in Real Estate

 

building wealth in real estate

“The major fortunes in America have been made in land.”- John D. Rockefeller

After more than 75 years John D. Rockefeller is still considered the richest man in history when you adjust for inflation.

According to the New York Times as of 2007, his net worth reached $192 Billion. Compare this with Bill Gates whose fortune is only $82 Billion. This shows how enormous the fortune of John D Rockefeller actually was. Only Commodore Vanderbilt and John Astor have even come close with $143 Billion and $116 Billion.

Rockefeller at one time controlled 90% of the nation’s oil and his fortune was approximately 1.5% of the nation’s economy. That is legacy wealth. Wealth that is hard to lose of destroy.

Even though all his wealth was made from oil, he still attributes major fortunes being made in land or real estate. That is a powerful statement.

What I am going to discuss here is one of the reasons why real estate is able to create legacy wealth. Wealth that can last for many generations if it is managed properly. Interestingly enough this is also one of the least understood benefits of owning real estate.

This post is the second part of a four part series about real estate. The last post, These Top 7 Powerful Tools Can Create Legacy Wealth from Real Estate, briefly touches on the importance of inflation to your real estate assets. I plan on going into much more depth this week.

The Advantages of Investing in Real Estate

Real estate is one of my favorite asset classes. Here is why.

In the prior post of this series I touched on a few of the reasons that real estate is such a favorable asset to invest in.

  1. You can easily use leverage to buy it,
  2. there is a limited amount of real estate
  3. Tax benefits
  4. It can create cash flow
  5. Appreciation potential
  6. It is inflation Proof
  7. You can reduce the debt in real terms over time.

Just one of these alone would be a good enough reason to invest in this asset class, but all 7 make it especially powerful. With exception of the tax benefits and the limited supply of real estate, all of the other benefits rely on inflation to enhance the performance of real estate over time. While I will discuss these in more detail, let’s first discuss what inflation is and how it works.

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These Top 7 Powerful Tools Can Create Legacy Wealth from Real Estate

real estate wealth

“Buying real estate is not only the best way, the quickest way, the safest way, but the only way to become wealthy.”  – Marshall Field

Marshall Field was an American Entrepreneur who lived in the 1800’s. His quote was obviously made in an era before tech stocks, hedge funds and excess money printing by the Federal Reserve. However the principal of owning real estate to become wealthy still holds true.

Real Estate is arguably the best asset class if you want to build enormous wealth. While you may have heard of real estate investors such as Donald Trump, or Sam Zell, there are countless more who are relatively unknown and are just as wealthy. Many of these investors prefer to live in relative obscurity.

What I want to show you are the 7 powerful techniques that these real estate tycoons were able to use to build their enormous wealth. While most of these techniques apply to both real estate investors and homeowners, there are more benefits from owing real estate as an investor rather than a home owner.

The 7 reasons you should own real estate as an investment:

real estate leverage
 

Leverage

Real estate is one of the few assets where you can use enormous amounts of leverage to own the asset, and banks will happily lend it to you. Leverage is a way to amplify the returns you receive on that asset, in both directions. Leverage is both beneficial and dangerous, so make sure that leverage is working in your favor.

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Deflation – How a Mortgage Can Destroy Your Real Estate Wealth

real estate deflation

“Thus inflation is unjust and deflation is inexpedient. Of the two perhaps deflation is, if we rule out exaggerated inflations such as that of Germany, the worse; because it is worse, in an impoverished world, to provoke unemployment than to disappoint the rentier. But it is necessary that we should weigh one evil against the other. It is easier to agree that both are evils to be shunned.”   – John Maynard Keynes

This is the 3rd in a series of 4 posts about investing in real estate. The last post, Inflation – The Secret To Building Wealth in Real Estate, is about how inflation is essential to building wealth via your real estate investments. While most people subconsciously understand that real estate has all of the features listed in that post, they may not be sure why real estate has those features. The key is inflation.

This week I will be discussing the other side of the coin, and what happens when there isn’t inflation to make your real estate the wealth building tool that it has been for over 50 years.

This week I will be discussing deflation and how it would affect your real estate investments. Many notable economists have made deflation the economic boogieman. They have claimed that it is the worst possible outcome in an economy. When you hear someone talking about deflation, it is highly likely that Japan will also be mentioned in the same sentence.

Deflation is rare in the global economies of today. This is primarily because central banks around the world have engaged in a campaign to create a consistent inflationary environment for their own economies. This has worked for a few decades without hyper-inflation or persistent deflation in developed economies. Except for Japan.

Japan is one notable example of deflation which has taken hold in an economy and created a deflationary spiral. This is the essence of what economists fear. While this may sound scary, it isn’t, or doesn’t have to be. This week I will be discussing how deflation affects real estate, and why you should understand this if you want to protect your wealth.

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Inflation Monitor – January 2016


Inflation Monitor Summary – Composite Ranking

Inflation Monitor Summary December 2015

* The Inflation Equilibrium is a quick summary for the whole data series of the inflation monitor. If you don’t like statistics, this is the chart for you.


 

Inflation Monitor – January 2016 – Introduction

 

Happy New Year. I hope you enjoyed your holidays with lots of eggnog and holiday cheer.

2016 has started with a bang… or rather a thud. The US equity markets have had their worst start to the new year ever. I guess you could say that the thud has not happened yet since the US stock markets are still falling. The Chinese stock markets have gotten all the blame, but I think the drop in equities is overdue.

In week one, S&P 500 (-6%), NASDAQ (-7.3%), and Dow (-6.2%). Gold surprised to the upside +3.1%.

End of week two, S&P 500 (-8%), NASDAQ (-10.4%), and Dow (-8.2%). Gold is still up 1.8%.

If you have been following this Inflation Monitor for the past year you will know my thoughts on the markets. We saw strong deflationary data last year. Not surprisingly, no one noticed. The fact that it took the equity markets this long to react to this data is really the only surprise I see.

If you have not read my 2015 recap, then now is a good time to read it. Last year the S&P 500 ended with a performance of -0.7%, which is surprising since many blue chip companies were down between -10% & -20% for the year. If you did nothing but look at the index, you would have missed the large dislocation of the index performance and the performance of the underlying stocks.

The risk you should consider this year is contagion. This is the risk of assets selling off because other assets are selling off, having very little to do with underlying fundamentals. For example, if the high yield bond market continues to sell off or worse yet, crashes, then the investment grade corporate bond market may also sell off. This in turn could lead to a sell off in equities and other assets. The spread of this contagion is not knowable, but you should be aware of this risk.

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