I think real estate will have been a poor investment 20y+ from now.
Some reasons why:
1) Options
Our parents’ generation had one asset class to invest in: their home.
Coming generations will have a lot more options available to them. Stocks are much more available now, and crypto + metaverse assets will add tons of new assets.
So RE has a lot more competition.
2) Politics
With rising inequality, RE ownership will likely get more concentrated.
If >50% rent (rather than own), politicians will pander to their wishes.
Pro-tenant policies will make it less attractive to own property.
3) Population growth
The “always up” mindset of property prices has been accompanied by an insane population growth.
This will slow down over the next decades.
Less people growth, less growth in demand for housing (ceteris paribus).
4) Leverage
Buying a home has been the only way to get cheap leverage on an investment.
If you have $100k in savings, banks can offer (at least) $400k in a mortgage, giving you 5x leverage at ultra-low interest rates.
4) cont.
This is changing.
You can already collateralize crypto. For many reasons it’s a vastly superior asset to use as collateral, and it’ll only get better.
Over time this means the RE advantage of leverage faces more competition. (Similar to the 1st point.)
5) Mobility
Coming generations will move around more, which means owning a home is less appealing (except for rental income).
Homeowners age is at ATH by the way.
In summary:
I expect the “always up” trend of property prices to meet its end in our lifetime - possibly sooner than most think.
Disclaimer: I’m a random person on Twitter. This is not financial advice. I have no credentials except my profile pic is a penguin.
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Been working on a bankless Hong Kong Dollar, built on Ethereum: HKDai.
It's the first time I build a dapp end-to-end, so here's a thread with some thoughts + current status.
What is HKDai?
HKDai is a cryptocurrency which - similarly to the Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) - is soft-pegged to the US Dollar (USD) at a rate of 7.8 HKDai to 1 USD.
While the HKD is pegged by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) intervening in markets at certain price points (sell HKD at HK$7.75; buy HKD at HK$7.85), HKDai is 100% collateralized by Dai.
You can margin-trade DAI/USDC when the peg strays from $1, in case you're not aware!
Example using @compoundfinance : 1. You have $1,000 $USDC on Coinbase 2. Buy $DAI @ $0.99 (incl. fees) => You now have $1,010.10 DAI 3. Lock your DAI into @compoundfinance
(thread)
4. Receive $68.69 in yearly *supply* interests (current rate) 5. Borrow 50% of your supplied DAI in USDC, i.e. $505.05 6. Pay $63.79 in yearly *borrow* interests (again current rate)
7. Buy more DAI @ $0.99 for your borrowed USDC => You now have $510.15 more DAI 8. Lock your new $510.15 DAI up in @compoundfinance for an additional $34.69 in yearly supply interests 9. You're now net positive on your interests: $39.59/year, or 3.96% on your initial capital