The economic stress of being a landlord, and the bank potentially repossessing your extra houses you don't even live in, doesn't compare to stress of BEING HOMELESS. Sorry to yell, but there's a difference being forced to live on the street, starving from not having eaten in days, and being stressed about next quarter's financials being off, while inside of an air-conditioned house, and having food delivered.
They say money doesn't buy happiness but personally, I highly recommend being rich over being poor. If, as a rich person, you chose to invest in real estate (risky, as pointed out why) instead of the stock market (also risky, see Q1 2020 volatility), then sure let's discuss ROI for REIT vs SPY over a 15 year period that includes 2008 and 2020. However, let's not pretend being in the highly privileged position of throwing money you have but don't want to spend at a problem (Eg selling shares of stock, in order to cover the cost to restore property after a bad tenant) is remotely the same thing as being too poor to afford food.
There are risks involved with investing money, but the number of hours it takes to make $50,000/year from a $10,000,000 investment, is approximately 0. For those hustling 60 hour weeks to make $43,440/year, that's obscene.
If you were a landlord and couldn't save enough in the 12 years between 2008 and 2020, to weather a few months of not having the rental income, maybe you should have taken fewer trips to the Caribbean, or Europe. For those that are just getting in during 2020, I'm sorry.
>The economic stress of being a landlord, and the bank potentially repossessing your extra houses you don't even live in, doesn't compare to stress of BEING HOMELESS.
That's not true as a universal. Tenants have flexibility of moving to another locations, moving in with friends or family, or making alternate arrangements. On the other hand, foreclosure and repossession would mean the erasure of a family's life savings.
So yes, it does compare, and in many cases it is worse.
By the way, chronic homelessness is not an economic problem. It is equal parts mental illness/drug addiction and polices pushed by activists to prevent providing institutional care to those individuals. Economic homelessness, on the other hand, though it is terrible and happens, it is a transitional state and existing government welfare programs mitigate.
>If you were a landlord and couldn't save enough in the 12 years between 2008 and 2020 ...
This is obscene statement. You have no qualms creating hypothetical fiction in order to extend irrational levels of empathy towards your fictional situations, but you have zero left towards a real group who could be really struggling. And no, landlords are not your Dickensian style villains. They could be working class people who saved their entire lives to purchase another property, or they may be renting out their own house ... and you look at them with disdain. Ugly, through and through.
Foreclosure takes a long time during which you could sell the house and extract any gains in equity made during years of fast growth and use this to support your family and keep your home where your family lives.
In a bad scenario you keep most of your wealth and the home you live in.
Your bad scenario is still literally better than half the nations good scenario.
They say money doesn't buy happiness but personally, I highly recommend being rich over being poor. If, as a rich person, you chose to invest in real estate (risky, as pointed out why) instead of the stock market (also risky, see Q1 2020 volatility), then sure let's discuss ROI for REIT vs SPY over a 15 year period that includes 2008 and 2020. However, let's not pretend being in the highly privileged position of throwing money you have but don't want to spend at a problem (Eg selling shares of stock, in order to cover the cost to restore property after a bad tenant) is remotely the same thing as being too poor to afford food.
There are risks involved with investing money, but the number of hours it takes to make $50,000/year from a $10,000,000 investment, is approximately 0. For those hustling 60 hour weeks to make $43,440/year, that's obscene.
If you were a landlord and couldn't save enough in the 12 years between 2008 and 2020, to weather a few months of not having the rental income, maybe you should have taken fewer trips to the Caribbean, or Europe. For those that are just getting in during 2020, I'm sorry.