DIY Investing: An Easy Guide To Investing Your Own Money
02.12.2023We’re back with a brand new season of Whiteboard Friday episodes for your viewing pleasure. First up: SEO expert Cyrus Shepard shares his top 22 tips for successful Google SEO in 2022. Watch to find out what to prioritize and what to look out for in the year ahead! Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high resolution version in a new tab! Video Transcription Howdy, Moz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday, a very special edition, our annual SEO tips of the year edition. This year it is 22 smart SEO tips for 2022. I’m going to be talking about some of the most talked about things in the SEO industry over the past year plus a few tips from last year that we wanted to pull over because they were just that important. Because we’ve got 22 of them and we don’t want this video to take forever, we’re going to be going through these pretty quick, but for you we’ve linked to some resources in the transcript below so you can explore all of these topics further if you want. All right. Without further ado, let’s get started. On-page SEO tips for 2022 1. A/B testing I’m going to start with some on-page topics. Tip number one, A/B testing or simply testing. We’ve seen a lot more testing tools pop up in the last couple of years, which is awesome because SEO is not make a decision and implement it and you’re done. SEO is implement, evaluate, and then make decisions or sometimes course corrections. Is this something we need to pull back? Did C perform better than D? Which one would we choose? All the tips we’re talking about today can apply to this testing mentality. SEO is incredibly complex, and the old-school idea of best practices just doesn’t cut it anymore. So in ’22, develop a testing mentality with your SEO. 2. Author pages Number two, author pages. I really love this because Google this year updated some of their advice around author pages and their schema markup. It’s an important part of my strategy and a lot of websites that I use. A good quality author page helps Google evaluate your authors, which can be used for E-A-T and other things, and helps link them with their expertise. So linking your articles to a good author page usually includes links to other websites, author profiles, links to the articles they wrote, some biographical information. It can help establish your authors as expertise in a certain space. So take a look at your author pages and try to improve them and make this a task. 3. Google title rewrites Google title rewrites, number three. I don’t think there is any topic more discussed in 2022 than Google rewriting titles. A lot of studies, including one I did, showing Google rewriting 60%, 70% or 80% of a site’s titles. It can be frustrating. But what we’re finding is a lot of people aren’t evaluating those Google title rewrites. When you do, you can learn a lot about your own titles. Why is Google rewriting it? Is my title too long? Am I missing important keywords? Do I have fluff in there that Google doesn’t like? Or in some cases you can go back and try to correct the title that Google rewrote if they’re doing just a terrible job. So Google title rewriting, do an audit of those Google titles and learn what you can do. 4. Nuke the «fluff» Speaking of fluff, this may be the year that you want to nuke the SEO fluff. You know what I’m talking about with SEO fluff. It’s those flowery keywords. It’s those descriptions and it’s recipe pages. «Oh, I was walking along the Irish countryside thinking about my bread and biscuits.» That is your fluff. We’re finding that it may not be necessary, and it may even be detrimental to your SEO. Glenn Gabe wrote a great case study where they reduced a lot of their fluff on category descriptions and they actually saw an increase. Google is removing fluff from title tags. So this marketing, flowery, SEO writing stuff, it may not be helping you, and, in fact, it may be hurting you. Today Google is rewarding sites or seems to be rewarding sites that provide quick answers and more direct engagement. Better engagement, it’s usually better for your customers as well. So experiment with losing the fluff in 2022. 5. FAQ schema Number five, FAQ schema. So last year we talked a lot about different schema types, how-to schema, FAQ scheme, different things. If there was a clear winner in 2022, it was FAQ. The reason FAQ is the winner is because so many sites can qualify for it, it’s easy to implement, and if you win a FAQ schema in SERPs, you can gain a lot of Google real estate. So there are a lot of articles that talk about how to optimize for FAQs. You can get links, deep links in FAQs. There are a lot of things you can do. We’ll link to those in the transcript below. But take a look at your FAQ schema if you’re not currently using it: How to Optimize Your FAQ Schema to Maximize Positive OutcomesWhat Google’s FAQ Schema Update Means For Your SEO Strategy6. Tabbed content Last year we talked about tabbed content, bringing your content that is in tabs, in navigation and bringing it out. This year, we’re getting a little more advanced. Our friends at Merj did a study about types of tabbed content and how easily Google can extract and render and index different tabbed content. So if you still have content in tabs, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to take everything out, but you should research if Google is able to index and rank those appropriately. There are better resources this year to try to do that. So take a look at your tabbed content. 7. Faceted navigation Along the same lines, faceted navigation. We’ve been talking about faceted navigation for years, but this is the year to get a little more strategic with it. In certain ways, faceted navigation has always been like a set of rules, like if it has green dress, we are not going to index this or crawl it, but if it is size 12 or higher, we will index it. Today, smart SEOs are getting a lot more savvy about what they index, don’t index, and crawl with faceted navigation, and these tools are becoming increasingly available for sites like WordPress and things like that, where you can actually look at the traffic each page receives and index, crawl, faceted navigation on a page by page level, and these broad rules aren’t necessarily as necessary. You can get down to the nitty-gritty and increase your traffic that way, with fine-grained tools. So both tabbed content and faceted navigation, old-school concepts, but we’re getting much more sophisticated with them in 2022. Link building tips for 2022 All right, let’s talk about everybody’s favorite subject, links, because you need links to rank in SEO. But what a lot of smart SEOs know and talk about is you need links to rank in SEO, but you probably don’t need as many as you think. 8. Internal link optimization If you only have a few good external links, one of the best ways to leverage that is optimize your internal link optimization. We’ve seen a number of new tools and processes talking about internal link optimization. We’re talking about pages that have too few links, under optimized anchor text, pages that have great opportunities that aren’t ranking that should. So if you haven’t done an internal link optimization audit in a while, this is the year to do it and this is the way to leverage those internal links that you’re getting. 9. Deep linking Speaking of which, deep linking. In the old days, if you linked to a page, you just linked to the URL. But we’re seeing an increase in deep linking, linking to specific passages, text fragments, things like that, navigation, jump links. This is increasingly becoming a popular strategy to get people deeper into the page and give Google and other search engines signals about very specific parts of pages. This seems relevant as Google has recently introduced passage ranking, where they’re not just evaluating the whole page. They can understand individual passages as well. So making deep linking part of your strategy, as opposed to just linking to the URL, seems to be a great way of moving forward. 10. High ROI link building High ROI link building. I watched a great presentation from Ross Simmonds this year, the Coolest Cool, on link building with assets and determining the ROI of each of them, because everything you build links with, whether it be a tool, a blog post, a free PDF, it has a cost and that cost has an ROI. Ross found that certain things have higher ROIs than others. Tools have an incredibly high ROI, but they’re also expensive to create. Pages with stats on them, not that expensive to create, but also a really high ROI. I’m going to link to that video. It might be a paid subscription. I apologize about that. But it’s awesome. It was voted number one at MozCon. If you do link building, it’s definitely worth watching and definitely worth the cost. High ROI link building, know the cost of everything you’re producing and how much value you’re getting out of it. 11. Reduce redirects Let’s go old school again. Our friend Nick LeRoy tweeted not too long ago about reducing redirects. This is really old school, but a lot of people are forgetting it these days. If you have a large site and you have thousands or millions of redirects all sending confusing signals, 301 jumps to a 302 jumps to a 404, what is that? Looking at your redirect chains and reducing them to a single redirect with a clear directive can help reduce canonicalization errors. It can improve crawling efficiency, and at scale it can influence your rankings. So if you have a large site or even a small site with a lot of redirects, this is the year you want to do a redirect audit. Get on it. Audit, on it. 12. SEO for affiliate links How about SEO for affiliate links? We don’t talk a lot about affiliate links here at Moz, and Google traditionally hasn’t talked a lot about it either. But this year we saw Google introduce specific guidance for affiliate sites, which is something they really haven’t done before. Specifically for review sites, Google talking about what a good review looks like, talking about the good and the bad part of the product, the fact that you should link to multiple merchants so consumers have a choice. We haven’t seen this from Google before. So if you do SEO for affiliate sites, you do review sites, this is the year to review those Google documentations and make sure you’re creating sites that Google rewards and actually following Google’s guidance on it, which is something in past years I didn’t think I would be able to say about that. So it’s awesome to see. Google SEO tips for 2022 13. Reputation research All right, moving on to different topics, reputation research. My friend Lily Ray talks about reputation research a lot in terms of E-A-T. The idea that Google can evaluate your site based on what other people say about you. So if you’re Dr. Mercola and an anti-vaxxer and everybody is saying all these terrible things about you on other websites, Google can disappear you from search. Reviews, what are other websites saying about you in terms of reviews? Google quality raters often look at other websites to get reputation research, and it’s supposedly believed that Google can do the same thing algorithmically. So making reputation research part of your SEO audit process, what are other sites saying about you, is it incredibly positive, is it incredibly negative, this is especially important for your money or your life sites, sites that are going to be more impacted by E-A-T algorithms. So if you sell things or dispense medical advice, reputation research is a little bit more important for those sites. 14. Core Web Vitals — minimums Boy, last year we talked about Core Web Vitals a lot. One of my happiest things is that we are talking about it much less. Google announced a big update. It was a big hooplala. It didn’t quite work out the way Google kind of explained that it might. What happened was Google released Core Web Vitals, and some sites saw a boost, other sites saw a decrease, but it wasn’t as intense as we thought it might be. A lot of sites did improve. But we’re finding in 2022 maybe we don’t need to worry about it as much as we thought. My colleague Tom Capper did a study that showed that slow sites were still ranking and fast sites were ranking even higher, but the effect wasn’t as much. The one thing Tom did find though, that was important, was sites that failed all three Core Web Vital requirements were definitely in the dumps. So we should optimize for speed always, but perhaps in 2022 we don’t need to obsess over it as much as possible, based on Google advice. Speed is awesome. You should make your sites as fast as you can. But Core Web Vitals, don’t sweat it as much as we were in 2021. 15. Ditch AMP? Other things we might want to consider not sweating, AMP. 2021 was the year that we’ve seen a lot sites start to ditch their AMP. This is because Google no longer requires it as a ranking factor in their top stories. It does provide some speed benefits. It’s kind of a neat technology. We know people who work on it. It’s really cool. But a lot of companies were stressing out trying to maintain two different versions of their website to get that ranking boost. A lot of sites are starting to like, «Well, we don’t want to have two different versions. It’s a lot of overhead. It’s a lot of engineers. What if we just got rid of it?» They’re finding it really doesn’t make a difference. They can just work with one platform and still get as much rankings as they want. So if your company is struggling with AMP, this might be a year to experiment with ditching it. Or keep it if you like. It’s great, but a lot of people seem to be walking away. 16. Google Discover On the flipside, a lot of people are flocking to Google Discover. Google Discover is interesting. It’s not traditional SEO traffic, where you research a keyword and people are converting. It’s a little bit more like social media traffic. In fact, social media sharing seems to be one of the ranking factors that can influence how much traffic you get from Google Discover. But what we’ve seen in the last year is some publishers are optimizing for Google Discover, publishing those stories, and seeing huge amounts of traffic for that. Great for like news sites, blogs, popular things, things that talk about popular topics. We’ve gotten some Google Discover traffic here at Moz. We’re going to link to a couple of articles to show you how to optimize for Google Discover. But if you haven’t tried it yet, it may be a channel for you to explore in 2022. 17. Local SEO GBP categories We’ve got to squeeze in one local SEO tip. We’re doing this for our friend Darren Shaw, who publishes the Local Search SEO Ranking Factors every year, doing an awesome job at it. If you have a local site and you just have five minutes to do one thing, the number one SEO tip for 2022, get your GBP categories in order. Ranking factors studies show that it is the number one thing that can influence rankings. Do an audit of your Google Business Profile categories. Darren has a lot of tips over there with that Local SEO Ranking Factors. I would encourage you to look at it. Also Joy Hawkins is doing a lot with experimentations. I’d encourage you to look at her site as well. 18. Favicon review My tip, the tip that I’m going to die on this hill — favicon optimization. Why favicon optimization? I talked about this last year, but I don’t think people took me seriously enough. Over 50% of search results take place on a mobile phone where your favicon shows, and people are not optimizing those favicons. A good favicon can draw attention. It can zero you in on a very busy SERP, and it does it with just a few pixels. A good favicon can raise your click-through conversion rate one or two percent, which is awesome. How does it work? What do you notice on this screen? You notice the tip with a favicon. A good favicon is usually bright, it’s usually high contrast, and it draws your attention to your search results. So optimize your favicon, folks. I’m dying on that hill. SEO career tips for 2022 All right. So I want to spend a few tips on talking about your SEO career, because I don’t think we talk about this enough. What should you be learning this year, aside from Python because everybody loves Python? 19. Learn GA4 This might be the year that you want to finally familiarize yourself with GA4. GA4 is the product that’s replacing traditional Google Analytics. You’re going to see it in a lot more client accounts. It can be a little confusing to people. Some of the metrics aren’t there. It’s got some cool things in it admittedly, like they basically got rid of bounce rate and replaced it with engagement metrics, which is great because a lot of SEOs are a little too focused on bounce rate and engagement may be more representative, a holistic way that Google views your website. Our friend Dana DiTomaso has a course on LinkedIn that you can check out. But familiarize yourself with GA4 so you can walk into those meetings and you can present those reports and know what you are talking about. 20. Attend virtual conferences Conferences. COVID moved a lot of conferences virtually online. People attended them. A lot of people are getting burnt out on virtual conferences. But looking back at all the virtual conferences of 2021, there’s some great value there. Here at Moz, we had MozCon. We had some tremendous speeches. It also makes it more affordable for people all over the world. Traditional conferences, you pay $1,000 to $2,000 just to attend the conference plus travel and all that. But with virtual conferences, oftentimes they’re free or just $100 or $200. You can attend virtually and focus on the content and the learning and advance your career, and do the networking, reach out to the speakers. There are lots of opportunities there. So I would commit in 2022 to attending two or three virtual conferences and make that part of your career advancement. 21. Charge more Finally, the last tip on the career, charge more. 2022 is the year to charge more for your SEO services. Our friend John Doherty at Get Credo publishes his annual salary report or agency fee report. If you’re an independent consultant or agent, you can check to see what you’re charging compared to your peers. But, in general, SEO services are in high demand all over the world, especially high-quality SEO services. The power is in your hands to charge what you are worth, not undermining yourself. If you’re working in-house, it might be time to evaluate your salary and make sure you’re getting paid what you deserve, especially if you’re not getting paid as much as your colleagues or you’re part of an underrepresented group. Charge more in 2022. Make more money. And finally… 22. Be the last click Final tip of 2022, this was the final tip of 2021. It’s my favorite SEO tip of all time. Be the last click. That means satisfy your users. When someone is searching Google or any other search engine and they’re presented with a list of results, they’re clicking around, looking for what they want to be, make sure you are the last site that they click. Why? Because when they clicked to your site, they found what they were looking for. You satisfied them so much that when they see your site again, you’re going to be the first one that they click on because you gave them the answer. Provide awesome experiences for your users. Think of them first. Give them everything they want. Give Google no excuse not to rank you number one in the search result. All right, 22 tips for 2022. That’s all I’ve got. I would love to hear your tips. Please leave them in the comments below. Reach out to me on social media. If you liked this video, please share it. Thanks, everybody. It’s been fun. Video transcription by Speechpad.com
02.12.2023[ad_1]
I’m bullish on the housing market over the next decade. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve invested $800,000 in a real estate fund focused on Southern and Midwestern properties. Real estate price and rents should continue to go up for years due to positive tailwinds I’ll discuss in this post.
In addition to my real estate fund investment, I’m buying San Francisco ocean-view rental properties as well. Real estate is one of the most attractive asset classes to build wealth in a low-interest rate environment. As the pandemic subsidies, the demand for big city living will increase again. People want to be where the jobs and action are.
In this article, you will read 16 reasons why the average homeowner will likely grow richer. I have so much conviction in my housing market thesis that I’ve not only put my money where my mouth is. I’ve invested over $10 million in real estate so far.
Before I share all the reasons why the housing market won’t crash any time soon, let me first share some more background so you know where I’m coming from. After all, we all have our biases, and I am positively biased towards housing.
Brief Real Estate Background
Roughly 50% of my net worth is exposed to real estate. If I only owned stocks and real estate, real estate would account for a 60% weighting. My real estate portfolio consists of properties in San Francisco and Lake Tahoe, three publicly traded REITs, and a real estate crowdfunding fund focused on heartland real estate.
These assets generate roughly $150,000 a year in relatively passive income. If it wasn’t for real estate, I’d probably still be working a traditional job.
I’ve been buying real estate since I first came to San Francisco in 2003 because I found valuations to be cheap compared to Manhattan real estate. I had worked in Manhattan from 1999-2001 and never imagined being able to find a 2/2 park-view condo for under $600,000.
I kept buying real estate because I also realized U.S. real estate was, and still is, cheap compared to international real estate. Working in international equities enabled me to explore various countries while working. And I always checked out the various local real estate markets while on business trips. Not only is U.S. real estate cheap on a global context, we also have jobs that make U.S. real estate affordable.
Take a look at the real estate statistics from one of our biggest foreign buyers, Canada. Cities like Vancouver and Toronto are equally as expensive as the most expensive cities in America. Yet, there are hardly any big Canadian companies that come close to paying as much as U.S. companies.
Go ahead. Try to name just three Canadian companies that pay new college graduates over $100,000 a year.
At the start of COVID in 2020, I encouraged readers to buy real estate through posts such as:
Finally, I followed my own advice and bought a forever home in 2Q2020. I put my money where my mouth is. Otherwise, there’s no point talking so much about finances.
Reasons Why The Housing Market Won’t Crash Any Time Soon
For existing real estate investors, you should feel great about the risks you took to buy. It takes discipline to save up for a down payment. It also takes guts to buy a large asset with debt. My default recommendation for real estate is to hold on for as long as possible.
For new real estate investors, things are a little trickier. With strong demand, low inventory, and higher prices, you need to be careful running with the herd. Good economic times have clearly returned.
However, getting into a bidding war where you’re the only one out of 20 people willing to pay way over ask has its risks. The housing market won’t crash any time soon. But, if you buy a property this way, it might not appreciate for years as the market takes time to catch up to your top bid.
Let’s review some reasons why I believe the housing market will likely continue to stay strong for years. I assign a 90% probability the housing market will not crash (a 10% correction or greater) within the next three years.
I also believe with a 90% probability the housing market will continue to make new highs for the next three years in a row with on average high single-digit YoY gains. Single-digit YoY gains means that the pace of price growth should start moderating. If I’m wrong, then I will suffer the consequences as anybody with skin in the game does.
1) Rates Will Stay Low For Longer
We are in a permanently low interest rate environment. Interest rates have been coming down since the 1980s thanks to information efficiency, technology, global coordination, and learnings from previous cycles. Productivity gains have also been massive over the years.
All the economists and lenders who have urged you to take out a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage because rates might go up have been proven wrong. In 10 years, they will be proven wrong again if they continue to encourage a 30-year fixed mortgage. The average duration of homeownership is only about 10 years. There’s no need to pay more interest than you need to.
We all know that inflation is higher than what the government is reporting. Yet, despite record high prices in many asset classes, the 10-year bond yield still remains below 2%. That is an important figure because 2% is also the target inflation rate by the Federal Reserve.
With negative real mortgage interest rates, homeowners are essentially borrowing free money. On an inflation-adjusted basis, homeowners are actually getting paid to borrow money. As a result, there will be continued strong demand to take out debt to buy real estate.
Further, interest rates have been coming down for 40 years already. Low interest rates will carry the housing market to new highs. To bet that interest rates will suddenly surge to unaffordable levels after 40 years of decline is irrational.
Note: You can get competitive no-obligation quotes with Credible, my favorite lending marketplace. I locked in a 2.375% 7/1 ARM for a new home purchase before my relationship pricing discount.
2) Inventory Will Remain Depressed For Longer
COVID has permanently increased the intrinsic value of real estate. When billions of people began spending more time at home starting in March 2020, the appreciation for a home’s utility went up. Not only were homes protecting homeowners and their children from COVID, they provided a safe place for millions to play and work as well.
During perilous times, we hold onto what we treasure most. This is why real assets like homes held their value while stocks crashed 32% in March 2020. Unlike a home, you don’t need stocks to survive.
Given how much homes have given homeowners since the pandemic began, the tendency is to hold onto our homes for longer. You don’t get rid of things you love and use every day. You cherish them. Besides, what if there’s another pandemic or random disaster?
Homeowners also know that if they sell their home, they will have to compete against other homebuyers who want what they already have. Therefore, it is only logical to hold onto your home for longer. With lower inventory for longer, rising demand will continue to put upward pressure on home prices.
3) Potential Homebuyers Are Much Richer Post-Pandemic
The current potential homebuyer is likely much richer today due to a rise in stocks. The S&P 500 returned 16% in 2020. The NASDAQ returned 43% in 2020. Practically every single stock index went up in 2020. So far, 2021 continues to be another banner year for stocks, up more than 20%.
Further, the current potential homebuyer likely held onto their job during the pandemic. As a result, there was little-to-no income disruption as millions of people worked from home or found ways to make money from home.
Take a look at your own stock portfolio and net worth since January 2020. Chances are high you are up at least 10% since the start of the pandemic.
With more wealth from stocks and day job income, the buying power of homeowners has increased. With stocks continuing to go up and unemployment levels continuing to go down, homeowner demand will continue to increase.
4) Domestic And Foreign Institutional Demand Is Increasing
There is a clear increase in demand from institutional real estate investors for rental properties. With a decline in interest rates, investors everywhere are looking for higher-yielding investments. We’re not only seeing investors bid up real estate prices, but dividend stocks, and cash cow online businesses as well.
Technology has also made real estate syndication deals much easier to form. Capital raising is more efficient. Doing research online is easier. Signing documents and transferring funds is no longer a headache. As a result, institutional real estate funds are only going to get bigger, not smaller. More capital brings more competition.
The next uptick in demand will come from foreign institutional investors who buy up cheap American property. COVID helped serve as a throttle in 2020 and 2021. However, that throttle will soon be released. Foreigners are also hungry for yield. They have also experienced record-high stock prices while also amassing pent-up savings.
If Americans don’t buy our own homes, foreigners will buy our property for decades to come. Be forewarned. Foreigners will once again start buying up properties in international cities like San Francisco, NYC, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Boston.
But they are also getting smarter about heartland real estate as well. Americans have the head start. Be that as it may, foreigners aren’t far behind.
The U.S. housing market is cheap on a global context. The main reason why Canadians are consistently the number one buyer of U.S. real estate is because they recognize this fact. If the U.S. housing market were to turn into the Canadian housing market, prices could go up by another 30% – 70%!
5) The Federal Reserve And Federal Government Are Pro-Homeownership
Never fight the Fed or the Federal Government. If you fight the Fed, you will end up losing a lot of money. If you fight the Federal Government, you will likely get fined or get thrown in jail.
Given the Fed and the Government are pro-homeownership, it is only logical to invest in real estate. The Federal Reserve has already telegraphed it is willing to let inflation run hotter than its normal 2% CPI target to ensure the return of full employment. President Biden and Congress have clearly signaled their willingness to spend an endless amount of money on stimulus spending.
Besides the implicit support from the Fed and the Government, we have favorable real estate laws in place:
If you want to make money in real estate, you must put any negative beliefs aside about the Fed and the Government. Be politically agnostic and face reality.
Most of the time, the people who are most vocal against real estate are the ones who cannot afford to buy property, sold property at the wrong time, or didn’t buy property when they could have. For some reason, some people against real estate aren’t able to accept that people who buy real estate also buy stocks and other assets as well.
6) Demographic Tailwind
Fannie Mae estimates there are 88 million people in the millennial generation. This is the highest number I’ve ever heard reported of people born between 1980 – 1999. The millennial generation definition seems to be getting larger. But, the point is there is a huge population of 22 to 41-year-olds who are in their prime home-buying years. All the previous talk of the millennial generation renting for life is turning out to be BS.
A good life tends to be the same as it ever was for most people – find a partner, own a home, start a family, work hard to provide for your kids, retire with a paid-off home, etc.
Millennials have been late to the home buying trend due to more education, more student debt, delayed unions, and more competition. But for the past 5+ years, millennials have been the largest percentage of buyers. This trend will likely continue for another 10+ years.
As an investor, it’s generally a good idea to invest in long-term trends. Positive demographics are a long-term trend worth riding. Once you invest in a positive trend, you don’t have to worry as much about the minutiae. You just need proper exposure.
Check out how the median age of US homebuyers continues to increase over the past decade. Thankfully, the median life expectancy is also increasing.
7) Multi-Generational Wealth Transfer
The Boomer generation (born 1944 – 1964) is one of the wealthiest generations in history because Boomers have been able to invest in the longest bull market in history. As a result, Boomers have an estimated $30 trillion in wealth they will be transferring to their children when they die.
However, given how rich the Boomer generation is, they will likely transfer more of their wealth while still living in order to enjoy the benefits of their giving. The revocable living trust business is booming with the Boomers! My estate planning lawyer can’t keep up with the demand and now takes forever to respond to my e-mails.
We are seeing an increasing percentage of parents buying homes for their adult children. Now we are seeing parents and grandparents buy homes for their little children or grandchildren decades before they need independent housing.
With the estate tax threshold likely to decline from a record-high $11.7 million per person, more rich parents will spend down their estates to avoid a 40% death tax. Further, more Boomers will start regularly giving $15,000 a year in gift-tax exclusion per person. More GRATs will be set up to avoid estate taxes as well.
The tsunami of inheritance money will inject more capital into real estate, stocks, and other asset classes. Younger people are more motivated to invest. Younger people also want to see what type of wealth they can build on their own. In contrast, older people are more set in their ways, especially when they already have everything they need.
8) Homeowner Equity Cushion Is Massive
Take a look at the homeowner equity and mortgage debt outstanding chart below by the Federal Reserve Board. The data is as of Q32020 and homeowner equity has continued to grow. Homeowner equity was roughly $21 trillion versus $11 trillion in mortgage debt outstanding. With so much homeowner’s equity, there won’t be a housing market crash any time soon.
$21 trillion in homeowner equity with $11 trillion in debt is like having 65% equity in your home and a loan-to-value ratio of only 35%. Most first-time homebuyers put down 10% – 20% for a loan-to-value ratio of 80% – 90%.
If you have 65% equity in your home, your equity buffer is so large that you will likely never have to fire-sale your home through a foreclosure or short sale. You will do everything in your power to find ways to keep paying the mortgage to keep all your home equity from going to the bank.
In fact, with so much home equity, it is more likely the typical homeowner will take out a home equity line of credit (HELOC) to buy more property or consume more goods. Many homeowners are investing in public REITs and private eREITs through Fundrise to take advantage of the real estate trend.
If you have been a homeowner for longer than one year, just ask yourself whether you’d ever sell your home at a discount as the economy opens up. Of course not. You are going to enjoy your property and hold on to it for as long as possible.
Below is a another chart that highlights US owner’s equity in household real estate.
9) Household Debt As A Percentage Of Disposable Income Is Low
As long as a homeowner can service their debt and pay property taxes, the homeowner will never lose their home. Given it’s been much harder to get a mortgage or refinance a mortgage since the Global Financial Crisis, homeowners have had to increase their down payments. As time went on, incomes increased, homeowner’s equity increased, and mortgage debt decreased.
Today, we find ourselves in a scenario where U.S. household debt service as a percent of disposable income is at its lowest level for over 50 years. Part of the decline most certainly has to do with a continued drop in interest rates.
For example, when my wife and I refinanced our old primary residence in 2019, our mortgage payment dropped to about $2,850. Back in 2005, our mortgage payment was $6,500 for another house we owned.
If we adjust the mortgage amount to be the same as the mortgage we had in 2005, our mortgage would be about $4,300. Millions of homeowners are now much wealthier since 2009, yet are paying less to service their debt.
10) Inflation Is Picking Up
With the Federal Reserve keeping rates at 0% – 0.25% for longer in the face of a recovering economy, higher inflation is an inevitability. Real estate is one of the best inflation hedges given housing costs are a key part of inflation. Further, inflation whittles down the real cost of debt. This double benefit builds tremendous household wealth over time.
If possible, an inflation investor should go long healthcare, higher education, and real estate. Too bad none of us can buy private colleges that raise tuition by 7% a year! But at least we can buy healthcare stocks that gouge us every month, a primary residence, rental properties, and stocks.
The main reason why most of us work so hard and invest is so that we can afford a comfortable home, provide for our children, and one day retire without financial worry. Housing is a core part of inflation.
If you can invest in real estate that not only provides shelter, but also appreciates in value over time, you’re winning. The housing market is going to be a beneficiary of inflation. Real estate truly is one of the best inflation hedges we can own.
11) The Amount Of Funny Money Is Exploding
Every 40+-year-old investor learned his or her lesson from the 2000 dot com bubble. When you’ve had a multi-bagger homerun in names like Tesla, Bitcoin, and more, you convert some of those funny money gains into real assets like real estate. You most certainly do not roundtrip your Pets.com and Webvan stocks to zero!
As the mania for crypto, NFTs, Reddit YOLO stocks, and growth stocks rages on, more money will smartly find its way into the housing market for diversification.
At the end of the day, these huge gains will be converted to buy things that improve the quality of an investor’s life. In other words, real assets like real estate, art, wine, cars, and so forth. Otherwise, it’s all kind of pointless.
12) Credit Is Still Very Tight
When the dotcom bubble burst in 2000, real estate began to outperform until about 2H2006. That is when the euphoria hit its peak as banks lent to anybody with a pulse. Thankfully, lenders were forced to raise their tier 1 capital ratios and lend much more prudently since the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis.
Nowadays, only people with high credit scores and solid financials can get a mortgage. When I refinanced my mortgage in 2019, Citibank and Wells Fargo would only give me the best rate if my credit score was above 800. When I took out a new purchase mortgage in 2020, Wells Fargo required an 800+ credit score again.
During the 2020 crunch, the mortgage industry was very tight. There was a point where HELOCs and jumbo loan refinances were restricted, even to existing customers. Further, going through the underwriting process took a month longer than average.
Take a look at the mortgage originations by credit score chart below. Notice how anybody with under a 660 credit score has essentially been shut out from getting a mortgage or refinancing a mortgage since the GFC. Further, the percentage of borrowers with a 760+ credit score has increased.
It’s hard to see the housing market crash when predominantly high credit score borrowers with huge homeowner’s equity have been buying since 2008. Just look at the 1Q2009 blue bar compared to the latest blue bar. We’re talking a 5-6X difference!
13) Rents Are Rebounding In Big Cities
One of the reasons for housing bubble concerns is that cap rates compressed to unattractive levels. As a result, a lot of capital flocked towards 18-hour cities where cap rates are higher. At the end of the day, a home price cannot keep going up indefinitely without rental price growth.
During the pandemic, we saw rental price compression in some of the most expensive cities in America. However, rent prices are now rebounding and will likely continue to rebound as people come flocking back. A continuous rebound in rent bodes well for home prices.
Besides big city rents going up, national rent growth has been accelerating. Ultimately, the value of a property is based on a multiple of its rental income. As a result, rising prices are supported by rising rents nationwide.
Here’s another rent growth chart for good measure.
Related: Rising Rents, Rising Fortunes For Landlords: But Is It Fair?
14) The Cost To Build Housing Is Rising
You may have heard that lumber prices are up 3X in one year as demand outstrips supply. Therefore, framing costs to build a house are up at least 2X as lumber accounts for 70% of framing costs. To build a new 2,000 sqft house, framing costs might be up $70,000 – $100,000. There are supply-chain shortages in many finished products as well. Expect delays.
Thankfully, lumber prices have cooled off as supply constraints normalize. That said, prices are still up double-digits from 2019 after the roundtrip in lumber prices in 2021.
Then we have a construction labor shortage that is causing wages to rise. My contractor told me he is paying his subcontractors 50% – 100% more per hour than when he did a project for me in 2015. I don’t doubt his word because I’ve been using one of his workers to do some side work for me over the years.
Finally, it is now tougher than ever to get a building permit in some cities due to the rise in home remodeling activity. Planning and Building departments are backed up. I’ve been waiting to get my within-the-envelope permit approved for close to four months now. What a waste of time.
The increase in cost and time to build or remodel a home makes a home more valuable. At the margin, new or newly remodeled homes will likely command a larger premium than fixers.
Note: You should re-shop your homeowner’s insurance policy. With the cost of building a home going up quickly in the past couple of years, your homeowner’s insurance policy is likely not enough. Check and compare the latest rates with PolicyGenius for free. Not only might you save money on your policy, you’ll rest easier knowing you are properly covered.
15) Selling Costs To Sell A Home Are Still Too High
If the cost to sell a home dropped to $0 like stock trading, I’m certain there would be a lot more supply of homes for sale. However, many realtors are still able to charge a 5% – 6% commission to sell a home despite the internet. Therefore, the real estate industry is self-throttling, which is actually beneficial for homeowners who never sell.
In addition to high real estate selling commissions, there is also the cost to prepare the home for sale. Potential costs include painting, refinishing floors, painting, changing fixtures, repair, and staging. Then there are transfer taxes, recording taxes, and potentially capital gains taxes to pay.
Here’s a sample table of the cost to sell a home.
It took the previous owners of our home four months and ~$150,000 to get the home ready for sale. They put on a new roof, finished all the floors, painted the inside and outside of the house, changed many windows, replaced a couple decks, fixed a leak, re-did a ceiling and a wall, and landscaped. As a buyer and experienced home remodeler, I loved knowing this and seeing the before and after pictures. It meant I didn’t have to go through any of that.
Given all the costs and time required to sell a home, you have to be really motivated if you want to sell. Selling during a pandemic is just another hurdle. Therefore, perhaps pent-up supply is coming once there is herd immunity. However, unless selling costs go down, the vast majority of homeowners would rather hold on.
The cost and time required to sell a house makes panic-selling much harder. Therefore, the likelihood of a housing market crash is also lower.
16) Potential Long-Term Capital Gains Tax Hike
President Biden wants to raise the long-term capital gains tax rate from 20% to 39.6% for households who make over $1 million. If you are a long-time homeowner sitting on more than $1 million in capital gains beyond the $250K/$500K tax-free profit exclusion, then you may end up holding onto your home for longer. As a result, home inventory should decline.
It’s already difficult enough to move out of a home you’ve lived in for 40+ years. Why would you then sell it to pay a 43.4% capital gains tax (includes the 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax)? Instead, it’s best to hold onto your gold mine forever and pass it down to your children when you die.
With lower housing inventory due to a higher capital gains tax rate, housing prices should continue to stay elevated.
17) Higher Conforming Loan Limits Improve Affordability
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) increased the conforming loan limit for 2022 by an astounding 18% to $647,200, up $98,950 from 2021’s limit of $548,250.
In higher-cost areas, the new loan limit increases to $970,800, or 150% of the baseline loan limit. This ceiling applies to residents of Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as areas in which 115% of the local median home value exceeds the baseline conforming loan limit.
These record-high increases are great for homebuyers because conforming loan rates are generally about 25 basis lower than nonconforming loan rates. As a result, housing demand, especially for homes priced up to 120% of the conforming loan limits should remain high.
Best Time To Get Into The Housing Market
With all the bullish reasons to get long the housing market, when is the best time to enter the housing market? I can think of four situations:
1) When You Can Afford To
I’ve made a case the best time to buy property is when you can afford it. In my opinion, you can only comfortably afford property if you follow my 30/30/3 rule. For those of you in more expensive metropolitan areas, you can stretch to buy a home equal to 5X your household income, but no more.
If you do stretch to 5X, you had better be bullish about your career. If not, you will likely have some sleepless nights for the first couple of years until your savings coffer gets refilled.
2) During The Winter
If you’re looking for the best time to buy property during the year, the answer is during winter. Sellers who list their homes during bad weather and holidays months are usually more motivated. If they weren’t motivated, they could simply hold off for several months and list in the spring.
3) When The Moratoriums End
The other potentially good time to buy property is when the mortgage and rent moratoriums end. The idea is many homeowners who are behind on their mortgages may have to foreclose or short-sale because they cannot afford all the back pay.
If banks are smart, they will simply tack on the back pay to the overall mortgage balance. This way, the homeowner gets to pay only a slightly higher mortgage amount each month. The lender also still gets paid with interest. Everybody wins. But, investors need to prepare for illogical legislation or moves by lenders by building up a cash hoard now.
However, institutional investors and retail investors are also waiting for such an opportunity. Hence, competition will likely continue to be fierce.
For example, Fundrise, my favorite real estate crowdfunding platform, has been aggressively buying single-family properties. Therefore, I’m happy to put my money with them so they can do the work and make the returns for me.
4) As Soon As Economies Open Fully
Perhaps the best opportunity to enter the housing market is when people start traveling in droves. Everybody, including myself, wants to travel again. With more people traveling, there should be less competition. I’m noticing slightly more buying opportunities and less competition at the moment.
The reality is that there are always good real estate opportunities if you look hard enough. Some properties are mis-priced and go stale-fish. Some properties are listed by an out-of-town agent without the proper marketing skills and connections.
You might also be able to get a deal if you send a real estate love letter or knock on a home that’s looking to be prepped for sale. That’s what I did in 2019 and it worked like a charm.
Real Estate Will Always Be A Core Holding
To get over your real estate buying fears, think in generations. What will your kids and grandkids say about the property you buy today? Chances are high that in 20-40 years they will be amazed at what a good deal you got. Inflation is too powerful of a force to combat. It tends to sneak up on you.
A savvy investor rides the inflation wave. Just like how it’s not a good idea to short the S&P 500 long-term, it’s not a good idea to short the housing market by renting long-term.
I don’t care what your favorite financial guru says about the negatives of owning real estate. There’s a reason why the net worth of the average homeowner is more than 40X the net worth of the average renter. Just the forced savings each month alone keeps a homeowner disciplined.
What If There Is A Housing Crash?
If the housing market does crash one day, you will probably make out just fine if you bought responsibly and keep paying your mortgage, if any. Real estate is not like stocks. With stocks, you may go through daily heart attacks as their value disintegrates during a bear market.
During the 2008-2009 crash, my primary residence likely went down from $1,700,000 to at worst $1,400,000 (- 17%). But I refinanced the mortgage when rates declined to boost cash flow. Then, I happily kept living in my home until I found a new place in 2014. I turned my old home into a rental.
When my son was born, I sold the rental property for a lot more. Then I rolled $550,000 of the proceeds into stocks, muni bonds, and commercial real estate. When new opportunities arose in 2019 and 2020, I bought more single family homes.
Relatively Easier To Forecast A Future Slowdown
Unlike stocks, it can take years for the housing market to turn. Therefore, I’ll let you know when I start to get a sense that it does. After all, to be a successful investor, we must practice predicting the future.
Housing price growth rates must decelerate over the coming years due to the law of large numbers. However, I expect the housing market to stay strong for at least three more years. In fact, here is my 2022 housing market forecast.
I won’t have the capital to buy another single family home for a while. However, I do have the capital to buy publicly-traded REITs, private eREITs, and individual private real estate investments for more tactical exposure.
Take a look at my two favorite real estate crowdfunding platforms. Both are free to sign up and explore.
Fundrise: A way for accredited and non-accredited investors to diversify into real estate through private eREITs. Fundrise has been around since 2012 and is the largest real estate crowdfunding platform today. The platform has consistently generated steady returns, even during stock market downturns. For most people, investing in a diversified eREIT is the easiest solution.
CrowdStreet: A way for accredited investors to invest in individual real estate opportunities mostly in 18-hour cities. 18-hour cities are secondary cities with lower valuations, higher rental yields, and potentially higher growth due to job growth and positive demographic trends. If you have a lot more capital, you can build you own diversified real estate portfolio.
Best of luck in your real estate hunt! Stay disciplined. Run the numbers. Forecast worst case scenarios and only buy if you can survive them. I truly believe the housing market will stay strong for years to come.
One more bullish real estate scenario to think about. If the stock market corrects from its current lofty levels, bond yields move lower. When stocks sell off, capital tends to flow to the safety of real estate. This happened before in 2000 when the dotcom bubble burst. This also happened in March 2020.
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