Real estate remains the best long-term investment among Americans, a new Gallup poll has found.
For the second year in a row, the survey showed that nearly one-third of U.S. adults (31%) consider real estate a better investment than stocks and mutual funds, gold, savings accounts, CDs and bonds.
Stocks and mutual funds trailed real estate at 25%, followed by gold at 19%, savings accounts and CDs at 15% and bonds at 6%.
Confidence in real estate as well as stocks and mutual funds has gradually increased as the appeal for gold has waned.
Since 2011, Americans’ preference for gold has dipped 15 percentage points, the largest shift among the five investments tracked.
Savings accounts and bonds have consistently ranked low as the best investments. Both were slightly higher when the annual poll began tracking the investments in 2011, possibly a reflection of Americans’ desire for stability and security in the years after the 2008-09 financial crisis, pollsters concluded.
Today’s optimism for real estate runs high among all major gender, age and income groups. However, when it comes to the second best investments, opinions vary among the various subgroups, with savings accounts/CDs coming in high for low-income respondents and men over 50 preferring gold over stocks and mutual funds.
Results of the poll were based on telephone interviews conducted April 9-12 with 1,015 randomly sampled adults. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Bullishness about real estate coincides with a positive climate for home buying. Gallup also found about 69% of Americans say it is a good time to buy a house, which is down slightly over the previous two years but considerably higher than in 2006-2008 when interest rates went up and the housing bubble burst. During that period, just over half of Americans were enthusiastic about home buying.
Any reservations about home buying may stem from home values. About 59% of Americans said they expect home prices to rise, the highest percentage since 2006.
To some, rising prices is a signal that conditions are better for sellers than buyers, meaning that buyers may not be getting as good a value.
Still, favorable attitudes toward real estate as a long-term investment are expected to keep Americans’ interest in buying and selling homes strong for the foreseeable future.
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