The general perception in the country is that equities or stocks are a method of gambling with money while real estate is where you can really rake in the moolah! This has been a major source of debate in many forums, yet most die-hard traditional-minded Indians will tell you that property is the best place to invest in and provide you with 20 different stories on how their uncle, friend and grandfather made fabulous returns on some ancestral rambling property!
That having been said, the debate is far from over as numerous people are of the opinion that investing in stock market is the best option too, but they have a series of tight rules for this: You should only invest in stock when you have money to spare which you won’t be needing anytime soon. You should not break your investments just because the market is swinging. You should only break your investments because your goals have been met. And finally, don’t be stingy about the amount you are investing in SIPs or equities, as large returns can only be expected when the initial investment was a respectable amount!
Majority of people are happy to pay up a good portion of their monthly income as EMIs on their homes, yet these same very people would balk at the thought of putting in more than a couple of thousands as SIPs. Another thing is that money invested in the stock market is transparent as it has to go through numerous agencies and channels and the money is clean or ‘white’ money. Such is not the case when it comes to investing in property; the regulatory authorities are missing from this sector and cases of fraud, concealment of facts have been reported.
People with spare cash or extra income are hence often in a dilemma about which direction to head in, as both have their merits and demerits. But if one were to go by what Mark Twain said, ‘Buy land, they are not making it anymore’, then real estate would defiantly seem to be what he was getting at. There are so many seemingly miraculous stories going around about homes or plots that were bought for chickenfeed amounts some 50 years back, and are being sold in crores today; it’s these kinds of stories that keep the real estate industry on an upward swing.
Investing in real estate seems to be a better option though, bringing in handsome returns over the years. There is just one simple rule to follow when investing in real estate, enter the market when the rates are down and exit the market when prices are shooting north. The best part of real estate investment is that you don’t really need to sell, just pass it on from generation to generation, and sell only when there is a cash crunch. In this way, you will end up multiplying the value of your property way beyond your imagination!
But remember, raking in the moolah on these investments is overall possible only when you have sufficiently large cash set aside as backup.
