I'm dubious as everything I've seen shows equities winning over almost any 20-30 year period. And by equities I mean a minimal load index fund. It's well known housing pretty much follows inflation (http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/case...).
On the surface, it would seem bizarre if housing could beat stocks long-term. I can't speak much for gold.
1. housing: People have to afford their houses. As long as land is not scarce, this is just going to follow (housing-part) inflation. The reasonable maximum (across the US) is median income growth.
2. Stocks: As a first (0th?) order approximation, some weighted average of US and world-wide nominal GDP growth. Should easily beat #1.
3. Gold: Pretty complicated to track. Demand will rise as world incomes go up. But suppliers respond and pump more gold out. In theory, this makes gold more expensive but advances in technology can make production cheaper. As a naive investor though, I see no reason to invest in gold as I know little about the supply-side.
> It's well known housing pretty much follows inflation
I'm curious why you claim that while providing a reference that clearly contradicts you: a reference house cost $100k in 1890, went down to under 70k in the 1920s and then up to over 200k a few years ago. Note that this is already corrected for inflation.
Gold is what it is. It's a commodity. It's pretty much moved with the CPI except in the last few years. You can make money if you can correctly speculate short term trends, long term it tends to be an inflation hedge at best.
Unlike your average stock, which depends on many variables. You can do better or worse, but if you have no idea about these variables it's perfectly wise to stay away.
I'm dubious as everything I've seen shows equities winning over almost any 20-30 year period. And by equities I mean a minimal load index fund. It's well known housing pretty much follows inflation (http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/case...).
On the surface, it would seem bizarre if housing could beat stocks long-term. I can't speak much for gold.
1. housing: People have to afford their houses. As long as land is not scarce, this is just going to follow (housing-part) inflation. The reasonable maximum (across the US) is median income growth.
2. Stocks: As a first (0th?) order approximation, some weighted average of US and world-wide nominal GDP growth. Should easily beat #1.
3. Gold: Pretty complicated to track. Demand will rise as world incomes go up. But suppliers respond and pump more gold out. In theory, this makes gold more expensive but advances in technology can make production cheaper. As a naive investor though, I see no reason to invest in gold as I know little about the supply-side.