The thing with the gold is that you don't have to build, rebuild and maintain it or pay rates and taxes on it. You can take it wherever you go and it remains as new as the day you got it.
When you take the hidden costs of property vs gold and adjust for them I think you'd find that it's all about even and that both keep pace with inflation over time. Gold's massive advantage over virtually every other asset is its perfect fungibility - every generic bit of it is equally valuable.
If you want to bring selectivity into it, then those who have certain 100 year old gold sovereigns, US $20 dollar gold coins etc have done far better than ANY property you choose of equivalent "value".
