Is it worth buying real estate just to safely invest money?
The main point to consider is that your payments toward your own home replace your rent. Any house or apartment you buy will have changes in value; the value is generally going slowly up, but there is a lot of noise, and you may be in a low phase at any time, and for a long time. So seeing it as an investment is not any better than buying share or funds, and it has a much worse liquidity (= you cannot as easily make it to cash when you want to), and not in parts either. However, if you buy for example a one-room apartment for 80000 with a 2% mortgage, and pay 2% interest = 1600 plus 1% principal = 800, for a total of 2400 per year = 200 per month, you are paying less than your current rent, plus you own it after 30 years. Even if it would be worth nothing after 30 years, you made a lot of money by paying half only every month, and it probably is not worthless. You need to be careful not to compare apples with oranges - if you buy a house for 200000 instead, your payments would be higher than your rent was, but you would be living in your house, not in a room. For most people, that is worth a lot. You need to put your own value to that; if you don't care to have a lot more space and freedom, the extra value is zero; if you like it, put a price to it. With current interest rates, it is probably a good idea for most people to buy a house that they can easily afford instead of paying rent. The usual rules should be considered - don't overstretch yourself, leave some security, etc. Generally, it is rather difficult to buy an affordable house instead of renting today and not saving a lot of money in the process, so I would say go for it. "House prices do not go up.  Land prices in countries with growing economies tend to go up.  The price of the house on the land generally depreciates as it wears out. Houses require money; they are called money pits for a reason.  You have to replace HVAC periodically, roofs, repairs, rot, foundation problems, leaks, electrical repair; and all of that just reduces the rate at which the house (not the land) loses value. To maintain value (of the house proper), you need to regularly rebuild parts of the house.  People expect different things in Kitchens, bathrooms, dining rooms, doors, bedrooms today than they do in the past, and wear on flooring and fixtures accumulate over time. The price of land and is going to be highly determined by the current interest rates.  Interest rates are currently near zero; if they go up by even a few percent, we can expect land prices to stop growing and start shrinking, even if the economy continues to grow.  So the assumption that land+house prices go up is predicated on the last 35 years of constant rigorous economic growth mixed with interest rate decreases.  This is a common illusion, that people assume the recent economic past is somehow the way things are ""naturally"".  But we cannot decrease interest rates further, and rigorous economic growth is far from guaranteed. This is because people price land based on their carrying cost; the cost you have to spend out of your income to have ownership of it.  And that is a function of interest rates.  Throw in no longer expecting land values to constantly grow and second-order effects that boost land value also go away. Depending on the juristiction, a mortgage is a hugely leveraged investment.  It is akin to taking 10,000$, borrowing 40,000$ and buying stock.  If the stock goes up, you make almost 5x as much money; if it goes down, you lose 5x as much.  And you owe a constant stream of money to service the debt on top of that. If you want to be risk free, work out how you'd deal with the value of your house dropping by 50% together with losing your job, getting a job paying half as much after a period of 6 months unemployment.  The new job requires a 1.5 hour commute from your house.  Interest rates going up to 12% and your mortgage is up for renewal (in 15 years - they climbed gradually over the time, say), optionally. That is a medium-bad situation (not a great depression scale problem), but is a realistic ""bad luck"" event that could happen to you.  Not likely, but possible. Can you weather it?  If so, the risk is within your bounds.  Note that going bankrupt may be a reasonable plan to such a bit of bad luck.  However, note that had you not purchased the house, you wouldn't be bankrupt in that situation. It is reasonably likely that house prices will, after you spend ~3% of the construction cost of the house per year, pay the mortgage on the land+house, grow at a rate sufficient to offset the cost of renting and generate an economically reasonable level of profit.  It is not a risk-free investment. If someone tries to sell you a risk-free investment, they are almost certainly wrong." People in the United States in the mid-2000's thought that real estate was safe.  Then they discovered that when the bubble burst the value of their house dropped 10 to 50%. Then they realized that they couldn't sell, even if they had the cash to make the lender whole. Some lost their houses to foreclosure, others walked away and took massive hits to their wealth and credit scores. When it is hard or impossible to sell, that means you can't move to where the jobs are. While it is possible to make money in real estate, treating your house as an investment vehicle means that you are putting not only all your eggs into one basket; you are also living in the basket. In general you should assume that all investment involves risk. So if you are trying to avoid all chances of losing money then the safest form of investment is via your bank account and government bonds. Your national government has a program to insure bank accounts, you need to understand the rules for that program, including types of accounts and amounts. You should also look into your national programs for retirement accounts, to make sure you are investing for the long term. Many people invest via the stock market or the bond market. These investments are not guaranteed, though there may be some protection for fraud. The more specific your investments (individual companies) the more time you need to invest in research and tracking. Many investors do so via mutual funds or Exchange Traded Funds, this involves less of a time investment because you are paying the management comp nay for the fund to do that research for all their investors. There are two parts to this. Firstly, if you are also living in the property you have bought, then you should not consider it to be an investment. You need it to provide shelter, and the market value is irrelevant unless/until you decide to move. Of course, if your move is forced at a time not of your choosing then if the market value has dropped, you might lose out. No-one can accurately predict the housing market any more than they can predict interest rates on normal savings accounts, the movement of the stock market, etc.  Secondly, if you just have a lump sum and you want to invest it safely, the bank is one of the safest places to keep it. It is protected / underwritten by EU law (assuming you are in the EU) up to €100,000. See for example here which is about the UK and Brexit in particular but mentions the EU blanket protection. The other things you could do with it - buy property, gold, art works, stocks and shares, whatever thing you think will be least likely to lose value over time - would not be protected in the same way. "You are mixing issues here. And it's tough for members to answer without more detail, the current mortgage rate in your country, for one.  It's also interesting to parse out your question. ""I wish to safely invest money. Should I invest in real estate."" But then the text offers that it's not an investment, it's a home to live in. This is where the trouble is. And it effectively creates 2 questions to address.  The real question - Buy vs Rent. I know you mentioned Euros. Fortunately, mortgages aren't going to be too different, lower/higher, and tax consequence, but all can be adjusted. The New York Times offered a beautiful infographing calculator Is It Better to Rent or Buy?  For those not interested in viewing it, they run the math, and the simple punchline is this - The home/rent ratio can have an incredibly wide range. I've read real estate blogs that say the rent should be 2% of the home value. That's a 4 to 1 home/rent (per year). A neighbor rented his higher end home, and the ratio was over 25 to 1. i.e. the rent for the year was about 4% the value of the home. It's this range that makes the choice less than obvious.  The second part of your question is how to stay safely invested if you fear your own currency will collapse. That quickly morphs into too speculative a question. Some will quickly say ""gold"" and others would point out that a stockpile of weapons, ammo, and food would be the best choice to survive that." "Neither you nor others have mentioned the costs of being a homeowner.  First, there are monetary costs. If you own a house, you have to pay taxes. They will vary by jurisdiction, but are usually not zero. You also need insurance, which again comes with monthly rates.  Then, once in a while, you'll be hit with unpleasant lump sum payments. In 30 years, the mortgage is over and you own the house - but by that time, it will probably need a new roof. That's in the price range of a new car. And over that time, you'll rack up several other repairs which your landlord covers when you rent.  Another thing which feels less like an expense emotionally but ends up thinning your wallet is the cosmetic changes you make just because it's your own home. You wouldn't put marble floors in the bathroom if you rent, but you might be tempted to if you live in the house. It might be even worth it from a life satisfaction point of view, but we are talking finance right now, and that's a minus.  And then there are the opportunity costs. A house binds you geographically. You may pass up on a nice job offer because your house is too far away, for example. Or you might experience liquidity problems, because a house is difficult to turn into money in a hurry. If you are able to do so, it is usually a much larger sum than you need, and you are paying the costs inherent in that large transaction. These are just examples, you can probably come up with more costs.  Then, it is not sure how much money you can get of the house if you change your mind. Say you take this job at the other end of the country, or you become a parent of four and need more space. At the time you decide to sell, the market may have gone down due to the overall state of the economy, or to the house location's popularity, or your own house may have turned undesirable (what if you get a mold infestation which would only go away if you strip it to the concrete and rebuild?) You could let it to renters, but that's a hassle of its own. It takes time to find renters, it may be expensive (income tax, regulations like Energieausweis in Germany), it is risky (if they don't pay, you might not see money even if you sue them).  Then there is the problem that prices reflect not some kind of ""true"" value, but the intersection of supply and demand. And the home market is not as efficient as in a first semester microeconomics textbook. The buyers of private homes deal in small volumes, have little knowledge in the market, pay intermediaries' cuts, and are emotionally attached to the idea of ""owning my own house"". This drives demand up and creates higher prices than if you had perfectly rational actors on both sides. People pay money for the feeling of being home owners, so those who forego spending on that feeling have more money to invest in something else.  Owning something always causes expenses. You have to calculate the savings of having the house vs. the expenses of having it, before you can decide if it is a good deal or not. If you only calculate one side of the equation, you'll be badly mistaken." Investment is very uncertain, so I believe that unless you have loads of money, you should not play around with houses for the sole purpose of investing. Here are the questions which I would consider to judge the situation. Note that this is based on the current situation in The Netherlands Income: Your income is 1800 a month nett, which means your gross annual income should be somewhere below 28500. Allowed mortgage amount: Your maximum morgage amount is then roughly 135000 Is it expensive?: Given your maximum morgage, buying a 200k appartment would consume pretty much all your cash. There is some cost of buying the appartment, so basically if you buy it, you will not have much cash to decorate or deal with unforseen maintenance. If you are conservative, I would say that buying a 175k appartment is financially much more relaxing in your situation. What will be the monthly expense?: Monthly mortgage payments will be about 450~500. So your cashflow will suffer a bit.  The amount you actually 'burn' on interest in the early months is about 180 nett (assuming an interest rate just below 2% and tax deductions). There will be additional costs (more heating, long term maintenance etc.) so overall the amount of money you burn will be close to the amount of money you burn on rent. Of course over time there will be less interest, so this should go down. Value change: The value may go up or down, in the very long term I would bet on it going up, but on the short or medium term it is quite uncertain. If you may live there for less than a decade, value change is more of a risk than a benefit. Break even point: As you mention that you will buy a house for 200k, I will assume it is not in the heart of a major city, and that renting it out may not be very attractive. However, I will also assume that it is not the middle of nowhere, and that it will only take a reasonable amount of time to sell the house. So if you want to move out, you will probably sell it at a reasonable price. In this case a rule of thumb is that living in an affordable house is usually a good idea when you live there for more than 5 years. (Is it likely that you will find a partner in this period of time, and will you live at your place then, or somewhere else?) Buying a 200k appartment would leave you completely cashless after you move in, something I would not recommend unless you can depend on your parents for instance to 'bridge the gap' when your cashflow dries up. From a monthly expense point of view you are probably going to be OK, as long as you survive the short run. And financially it only makes sense if you are going to live there for a while, and are fairly confident in your position in the labour market. I would personally recommend you to think hard on your family situation, and only buy a house if it leaves you with some cash in your pocket. Consider looking into real estate investment trusts (REITs). Assuming that they are available for the area that you are considering they simplify the process of investing in this sector. Your money pooled with other investors and then invested in a broad range of properties. If you go this route make sure to only by REITs that are traded in the open market (liquidity and an honest current valuation). Even better I would consider a index fund of REITs for more diversification. Personally I do use a US based REIT index as a small part of my portfolio so as to get better diversification. "No one has addressed the fact that your loan interest and property taxes are ""deductible"" on  your taxes? So, for the first 2/3 years of your loan, you will should be able to deduct each year's mortgage payment off your gross income. This in turn reduces the income bracket for your tax calculation.... I have saved 1000's a year this way, while seeing my home value climb, and have never lost a down payment.  I would consider trying to use 1/2 your savings to buy a property that is desirable to live in and being able to take the yearly deduction off your taxes. As far as home insurance, most people I know have renter's insurance, and homeowner's insurance is not that steep.  Chances are a year from now if you change your mind and wish to sell, unless you're in a severely deflated area, you will reclaim at minimum your down payment."
Well, Taking a short position directly in real estate is impossible because it's not a fungible asset, so the only way to do it is to trade in its derivatives - Investment Fund Stock, indexes and commodities correlated to the real estate market (for example, materials related to construction).    It's hard to find those because real estate funds usually don't issue securities and rely on investment made directly with them. Another factor should be that those who actually do have issued securities aren't usually popular enough for dealers and Market Makers to invest in it, who make it possible to take a short position in exchange for some spread. So what you can do is, you can go through all the existing real estate funds and find out if any of them has a broker that let's you short it, in other words which one of them has securities in the financial market you can buy or sell. One other option is looking for real estate/property derivatives, like this particular example. Personally, I would try to computationally find other securities that may in some way correlate with the real estate market, even if they look a bit far fetched to be related like commodities and stock from companies in construction and real estate management, etc. and trade those because these have in most of the cases more liquidity. Hope this answers your question! A real estate contract is a form of seller financing. It is similar to a mortgage, but rather than borrowing money from a lender or bank to buy real estate, the buyer makes payments to the real estate owned, or seller, until the purchase price is paid in full. If you want to real estate purchase and sale contracts, then you can visit our office. We can provide the best deal of the real estate contact. The best way to invest in college for your kid is to buy an investment property and rent it out. You might think I am really crazy to ask you to you to buy a real estate property when everyone is running from real estate.  Go where others are running away from it. Look where others are not looking. Find out the need for a decent rental property in your city or county and start following the real estate market to understand the real activities including the rental market. I would say follow it for 6 months before jumping in with any investment.  And manage your property with good tenants until your kid is ready to go to college. By the time your kid is ready for college, the property would have been paid off by the rents and you can sell the property to send your kid to college. All of our paper ways are safe; if they go away this society has much bigger problems than what your retirement account is worth. I more or less understand the idea of being backed by the full faith of the government to mean that the government will be around for my entire lifetime.   It is my opinion that everybody who suggests we invest in gold, whiskey, nickels (or to a lesser extent real estate) because the value of money is going to go away, are interested in survival in a Mad Mad apocalyptic world.  I very much doubt we get there, and if we did everybody who planned for it wasted their time. Therefore, invest in the traditional methods that are frequently discussed here.  Then invest in our society, then make sure you vote from a learned position to keep our society on track with sensible leaders who are above reproach. A professional home inspection will clue you in on any problems you might be buying, so it's important in any real estate transaction. If the seller finances the loan, you need a lawyer. It might be a nice opportunity - being in the right place at the right time.  You just have to investigate all angles. A somewhat provocative (but not unserious) proposal: Rent, don't buy a house to live in. In 2007/8, the thing that got many people in deep trouble is their mortgage. It's not a productive investment but a speculative bet on what was in fact a bubble and a class of assets that is notoriously slow to recover after a slump. Before thinking about your savings or buying into silly ideas about gold, you should realise that as a middle class worker, the biggest risk after a crisis is losing your job. Renting your accommodation means being able to downgrade or move very quickly and not being forced to sell a house at the worse possible time. If you really do need to liquidate some of your investments at a bad time, having a more diversified portfolio means that you are not losing everything to meet some short-term obligations. Assuming you're in the US, this means forgoing some nice tax advantages that might be too tempting to resist (I'm not so I am basing this on what I read on this site) but, bubbles aside, there is nothing that makes real estate a particularly good investment as such, especially if you also live in the house you're buying. You might very well come out on top but you expose yourself to several risks and are less prepared to face a crisis. Putting the money in a bank savings account is a reasonably safe investment. Anything other than that will come with additional risk of various kinds. (That's right; not even a bank account is completely free of risk. Neither is withdrawing cash and storing it somewhere yourself.) And I don't know which country you are from, but you will certainly have access to your country's government bonds and the likes. You may also have access to mutual funds which invest in other countries' government bonds (bond or money-market funds). The question you need to ask yourself really is twofold. One, for how long do you intend to keep the money invested? (Shorter term investing should involve lower risk.) Two, what amount of risk (specifically, price volatility) are you willing to accept? The answers to those questions will determine which asset class(es) are appropriate in your particular case. Beyond that, you need to make a personal call: which asset class(es) do you believe are likely to do better or less bad than others? Low risk usually comes at the price of a lower return. Higher return usually involves taking more risk (specifically price volatility in the investment vehicle) but more risk does not necessarily guarantee a higher return - you may also lose a large fraction of or even the entire capital amount. In extreme cases (leveraged investments) you might even lose more than the capital amount. Gold may be a component of a well-diversified portfolio but I certainly would not recommend putting all of one's money in it. (The same goes for any asset class; a portfolio composed exclusively of stocks is no more well-diversified than a portfolio composed exclusively of precious metals, or government bonds.) For some specifics about investing in precious metals, you may want to see Pros & cons of investing in gold vs. platinum?. "I invested in single family homes and made ok.  Houses can be an investment. (though the OP seems to equate ""house"" with primary residence)   Just like any other investment buying houses has risks.   I would not treat your primary residence or a vacation  home as an investment.  That is asking for trouble, but for many many years it was safe to assume that you would make a good return on it, and many people did.   If you evaluate the numbers for purchase price, rental market, etc and find that rentals or flipping is worth your exposure then by all means, do it.  But treating your primary residence as an investment apparently is what that comment means. Just like the stock market, many people have gotten wealthy on homes and there are lots of people who lost their shirts."