Do you invest in Property also?

[Buffett Jr]

Obviously on a share trading forum, nearly all of us invest in shares.

However, how many own investment properties also? How do you balance the amount you put into each? Which do you prefer and why?

I'm not referring to REIT's etc.

[artemis]

I do both. I don't exactly balance the two in any formal way, but rather make buy and sell decisions based on lots of things. For example I sold a property because it was taking too much time and mindspace to manage. Most shares I own are blue chip-ish, but I have a bunch of higher risk ones because they are interesting. Plus you never know - win some, lose some. The risky ones overall are well ahead of the game. For now.

Property has advantages (leverage, rent income, table mortgage to slowly pay down debt, generally increase in value, one houses family members) and disadvantages (tenants, maintenance, more complicated tax returns). Shares are way easier day to day and at tax time.

I have had the rentals for a while, probably won't buy any more though. They are a lot of work.

[Snoopy]

Obviously on a share trading forum, nearly all of us invest in shares.

However, how many own investment properties also? How do you balance the amount you put into each? Which do you prefer and why?

I'm not referring to REIT's etc.

My principal property investment consists of my investment in my own house. I have a very reliable 'tenant' in there: myself. This tenant casues me no loss of sleep at night. This tends to keep me away from listed property investments, lest the property proportion of my own portfolio gets too high.

SNOOPY

[Biscuit]

Started out with shares and managed property trusts when I was young. Got married and started borrowing and buying residential properties which we "did up" and rented out. These still form the basis of our assets and income now. We also have a broad NZ and Oz share portfolio but this is a small fraction of the total. The big advantage with property is the ability to borrow heaps of money and the ability to reorganize the property to increase the income. The disadvantage is that it requires quite a lot of face to face management etc which can get tiresome.

[rentex]

I like Snoopy's comment! Dream tenant.
Owning a home is like an enforced savings plan, so even if the market doesn't move too much at least you have saved something at the end.
Managing properties well does take a lot of time, especially if you are working towards salary replacement income levels and therefore have multiple properties and tenancies.

[denpal]

I have 95% of value in my properties. The big advantage of property is the leverage through loans, although the new L/V rules have created a roadblock for easy portfolio growth, unless you do new-builds on which the new rules do not apply.

[JBmurc]

Also have most of my funds in property ...but would love to see my Share portfolio grow much larger over the longer term to make up 30-40% of my investments

[SCHUMACHER]

with a global debt level of 200 trillion - Property , gold and silver are the only things that make sense to me in 2016
I hold 85% property portfolio and 15% sharemarket - which to be fair sharemarket is pathetic returns compared to my properties over last 7- 10 years- mainly because the sharemarket is a giant casino these days

The world resources are at their limits, oil water, etc... and we will struggle to grow because of these constraints
The world governments have 200 TRILLION debt thanks to money printing
Liabilities at 5 X the debt - we can never pay off the debt and money is worthless so PHYSICAL ASSETS are the ONLY way to go IMO

[fungus pudding]

with a global debt level of 200 trillion - Property , gold and silver are the only things that make sense to me in 2016
I hold 85% property portfolio and 15% sharemarket - which to be fair sharemarket is pathetic returns compared to my properties over last 7- 10 years- mainly because the sharemarket is a giant casino these days

The world resources are at their limits, oil water, etc... and we will struggle to grow because of these constraints
The world governments have 200 TRILLION debt thanks to money printing
Liabilities at 5 X the debt - we can never pay off the debt and money is worthless so PHYSICAL ASSETS are the ONLY way to go IMO

Unfortunately you need quite a stack of this 'worthless' money to buy it.

[PennyPicker]

I've been thinking about property lately, but more in the form of an ETF, Vanguard or via Smartshares. Do you have any guidance on whether using a fund to put a toe in the property water is good or a misstep?