Robert Shiller: Don’t Invest in Housing

Robert Shiller of Yale was on Bloomberg yesterday discussing housing and his general outlook. But the most interesting comments were with regards to his general view of housing as it pertains to your overall portfolio. Shiller said that investing in housing was a “fad” and not a great historical investment. Of course, if you’re familiar with his long-term real returns chart  (see the chart in #9 here) housing generally generates returns that are in-line with inflation. US residential real estate just isn’t a great investment in real terms. Shiller explains why:

“Housing is traditionally is not viewed as a great investment. It takes maintenance, it depreciates, it goes out of style. All of those are problems. And there’s technical progress in housing. So, the new ones are better….So, why was it considered an investment? That was a fad. That was an idea that took hold in the early 2000′s. And I don’t expect it to come back. Not with the same force. So people might just decide, ‘yeah, I’ll diversify my portfolio. I’ll live in a rental.’ That is a very sensible thing for many people to do.  (more)

Please bookmark us