Should I invest
in real estate or the stock market with my savings
from working overseas?
Which works
best from overseas?
Caveat: These are only my opinions, I am not a financial
consultant.
Invest in what you know and in what you feel comfortable
with. Stocks, due to the Internet, are now easy to
manage from overseas. Real Estate is not.
Stocks can fluctuate wildly, even from day to day. Real
estate tends to stay fairly stable over time.
Research
There is plenty of research on the Internet nowadays for
just about any type of investment. It may be more a
matter of how much time you want to spend from day to
day following the research. Because of the slowness of
its movement, real estate may be better for those of use
who want to spend our free time paying attention to
other things.
Emotion
I
am an emotional investor, so I tend to stay away from
the stock market. If I see the value of my investments
move dramatically from one day to the next, I tend to
get either excited or worried. So, I like to invest in
real estate.
Real Estate
We
tend to not know the real value of property until it is
actually sold. I recently sold a condo in Phoenix,
Arizona (USA) for a very nice gain. But, really, I had
no idea what it might sell for before I began the
process. I had owned it for ten years, so assumed a
nice gain - and was pleasantly surprised.
Real Estate Bonus
When the stock market falls 30 or 50 per cent - as they
did at the end of the "Tech Bubble" - real estate
continues to produce. My rents didn't go down - they
just continued. That's why I like real estate - I am
biased. See the section on managing real estate from
overseas, if you intend to invest. As I have done it
since about 1974, I have some strong opinions on the
issue.
BTW, I own real estate for the INCOME that it provides
for me. It will be a big part of my income when I
retire. I don't own real estate to speculate
whether it will go up or down. It does - but my
rents tend not to vary when it goes up or down - so I
don't care either way.
Stocks
Though I am big on real estate, I do own stocks. I own
them to balance my portfolio and to not have all my eggs
in one basket. You might consider subscribing to a
service that will give you model portfolios and pick one
that fits your investment style. That's what I do and
it works well for me (so far!). I let them do the
research - they are the experts.
