Rebel,not sure what real estate market you are in but I'm in SE...

Rebel,

not sure what real estate market you are in but I'm in SE QLD. They reckon property doubles every 7-10 years depending on cap growth area. Well if that is the case we still have more catch up here. We had a big boom in the late eighties and then bugger all till the early 2000's. Our properties are all outter north of Brisbane. Yes we did buy at the right time as the boom took till early 2002 to ripple out this way. It ended abruptly xmas 2003. From that time till the beginning of this year property here was somewhere between stagnant and moving slightly backwards. all of a sudden there has been another big catch up. Gains are tipped to continue here at about 8% pa for the next 5 years although I don't know how they can make that call. Add to that skyrocketing rents and you have an attractive alternative to stocks.

I agree with a previous statement that real estate is the base for wealth creation. I love stocks too. I invested as much into MPO in Jan as I did that first house. By July I had made the same profit as well albeit without the rental income. On the other side of the coin I have seen about 30% of the value shaved off MPO in the last week.

Real estate - a great way to spread your bets.