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INVESTING IN REAL ESTATE

EVERYONE LOVES REAL ESTATE

Many people buy Real Estate (R/E) because everyone, even their in-laws who will lend them money, tells them it is a 'great investment'...'the best decision I ever made', etc. (This page was written long before the United States R/E implosion). Yet how many of those people ever kept track of what their investment return was? Can you find even one?

A real benefit from R/E comes from the savings being forced, and enforced, by the very structure of a mortgage. Let's face it - most people can't save. Without the bank demanding payments they would NEVER build up equity. That is real-life practical, but this website is for people who have a choice, who can save by themselves, and can invest by themselves. Also note that a study of Germans found that the more real estate people owned the less they saved. Included in the measure of savings was the principle portion of the mortgage payments. It is not clear which way the cause and effect flows, but regardless it is a warning.

Everyone, but EVERYONE, has a vested interest in promoting real-estate. Just think about it. Can you name ANY sector of society that doesn't want you to buy R/E?

• The newspapers publish whole sections, with 90% advertising, at least every week.
• Real estate agents are ubiquitous. The revenue they keep and the advertising dollars they spend are huge.
• The construction industry uses huge swaths of unskilled labour. R/E is the training ground for skilled journeymen.
• Home furnishing stores are on every local business street.
• Repair stores and repairmen are another set of beneficiaries.
• Cities depend on the growing R/E values for a tax base.
• Banks and mortgage brokers depend on your borrowing.
• Pension funds depend on the return from buying those mortgages to fund pensions.

One voice of concern was reported in The Economist after the US housing crash of 2008. "A decade ago Andrew Owald of the University of Warwick in Britain argued that excessive home-ownership kills jobs. He observed that, in Europe, nations with high rates of home-ownership, such as Spain, had much higher unemployment rates than those where more people rented, such as Switzerland. He found this effect was stronger than tax rates or employment law.

If there are few homes to rent, he argued, jobless youngsters living with their parents find it harder to move out and get work. Immobile workers become stuck in jobs for which they are ill-suited, which is inefficient: it raises prices, reduces incomes and makes some jobs uneconomic. Areas with high home-ownership often have a strong “not-in-my-backyard” ethos, with residents objecting to new development. Homeowners commute farther than renters, which causes congestion and makes getting to work more time-consuming and costly for everyone. Mr Oswald urged governments to stop subsidising home-ownership."

Of course, you are less interested in the social value of homeownership, and more interested in whether R/E is a good investment for you. You must be super careful of financial decisions made from one-sided advice. Below, the problems and realities of R/E as an investment are discussed.

You Should Buy Real Estate Because Rent $ Is Just Thrown Away ... FALSE

Most homes are financed with debt so the sad truth is that most of the monthly payment goes down a black-hole of interest - just like rent. It would be nice if all of the mortgage payment grew your equity - but not so. Even at low interest rates a 20-year 4% mortgage payment is 55% interest. (see Problem #3).

When you add the extra costs for:

• Property taxes
• Property insurance
• Condo fees
• Mortgage fees and insurance
• Regular maintenance and sporadic upgrades
• Higher utilities
• Higher commuting costs from living farther from work

FACTORS AFFECTING RETURNS

1) CAPITAL GAINS

In the long term, capital gains on R/E are only slightly above inflation. Properties on the coasts return slightly more, those inland slightly less. Graphs of real and nominal gains from many sources are shown at the bottom of this page. Don't be mislead by people quoting cumulative returns. E.g. "Mr A realized a 50% return." That is only 4.14% if held 10 years. The longer the holding period the lower the yearly return. (See Problem #6 in calculating returns.)

There are many problems with trying to measure prices over time.

• The real estate market is very cyclical. Do you measure the annual gains from peak to peak, or from trough to trough?
• The results may have a smoothing bias because artificial appraisals are done only once or twice a year, while actual market transactions may be more volatile.
• There may be a selection bias if only those properties sold are included. They may not represent the entire stock, especially when the housing stock is being rapidly changed.
• Data coming from REIT stocks will reflect the leverage these businesses use, while your own residence may be leveraged more or less.
• The idiosyncratic risk will be large when you own only one property. Your one property may have problems not faced by any index of properties.

2) ONGOING COSTS

These are most often totally ignored. Not only are there property taxes and insurance, your utility costs may double, and there are the never-ending repairs to the roof, siding and windows. You need to purchase ladders and shovels and lawnmowers. You will spend tens of thousands of $ buying furniture to fill the house. And just when you think you're ahead of the game, you pull out equity to update the bathroom only because it looks dated. These costs increase the cost of your investment and decrease your return.

Many people who live close to work while renting, find they cannot afford any homes in the area. In order to enter the housing market, they move farther into the suburbs. There is an increased cost to that decision. Even ignoring the cost of your time commuting, you will be paying higher auto costs and gas costs, etc. There is also the unquantifiable cost of your decision to NOT live in your first choice of area (where you were renting).

Strata fees are too easily dismissed when pricing a property. You must determine if the strata board assesses low regular fees because it keeps costs down, or because it assesses large lumpy payments for big ticket items as they are needed (instead of saving for them beforehand). Determine a 'normalized' cost to compare between properties. You should be willing to pay $13,764 more for a property that runs $1200/year cheaper (assuming you expect a 6 percent total return on your RE investment. See Problem #7.

The same math should be used to put a value on (eg) extra insulation or (eg) geothermal heating. Monthly savings for the life of the building are worth paying a premium today. But no premium should be more than the actual cost to install the same features yourself.

The strata's bank balance is also wrongly ignored. Your portion of it is no different from money in your own bank account. If a 10-unit property has $100,000 more than another, you should be willing to pay $10,000 more.

The costs of a residential apartment block may not be anticipated. See this offering document for a Vancouver property for sale in 2008. It gives good details on the normalized costs for a detailed list of items.

3) TRANSACTION COSTS

What other investment has 5%-7% transaction costs? Not to mention the legal fees and title insurance and transfer taxes, and the months and months to close the deal. Do you really think "I'll just rent it out if my job moves (or we have kids, or I meet a partner with a house)"? Think that through again. Being a landlord is no fun, even when you live next door. A ten-year tenure is now normal. You should expect multiple transactions in a lifetime.

4) INCOME

The return on R/E comes mostly from your rent saved. This is an application of the 'opportunity cost' concept. There are two approaches here. One argues that you save the rent on the property you WOULD BE living in if you did not purchase. The other argues that you save the rent-equivalent of the property you buy. Since most people buy more R/E than they would be willing to pay for as a renter, this second argument is a little self-justifying.

Of course if this will be an income property, the income is the actual rent you charge. Factor in the expected vacancy rate. Don't anticipate that market rents will keep up with inflation, making this investment inflation-proof. Research into Canadian markets shows that rents have not kept up with inflation in the long run. And more importantly, have lagged (along with property prices) in times of high inflation.

But commercial rents most often require the tennant to pay all the actual costs even as they increase with inflation. There may also be another clause stipulating a rent increase to equal inflation. In these circumstances the owner's income would be highly hedged against inflation.

5) TAX BENEFITS FOR CANADIANS

For owner occupied investments the Principal Residence protection from capital gains is a huge benefit. It is of greater benefit to those in the 45% tax bracket, than those at 25%. Tax savings apply also to the net rent saved (your operating return). Rents would have been paid out of after-tax earnings. Divide the net-rent-saved by (1-tax%). E.g. at 25% tax bracket the savings on $750 rent would be $750 / (1-.25) = $1,000 per month before taxes equivalent income.

Offsetting the benefits from your income tax, are the payments of property tax. Historically property taxes were roughly 1% of the market value. A yearly price appreciation of 5% taxed at 20% would equal the 1% property tax. So you could consider the capital gains fully taxed by the city instead of by the Federal Government.

6) INFLATION

Real estate price increases are often quoted in 'real' terms, i.e. with inflation removed. The implication becomes that real estate is a hedge for inflation, that during high inflation returns will be higher. This is debatable. There is much disagreement.

Capital gains and income from property can react differently to inflation. The impact on rents was discussed above. For capital gains look at the very last graphs at the bottom of this page. Prices during the high inflation of the 1970s and 1980s largely under-performed inflation.

The question whether RE hedges inflation can be looked at over a short or longer time horizon. Most agree that there is little correlation (even negative) in the short run but increasing to about 30% correlation over 3 years. Some research has found that office properties are the best inflation hedges, and retail properties the worst.

Instead of inflation, the drivers of real estate prices are interest rates, economic growth, market fundamentals, and other risk premiums.

CALCULATE THE RETURN BEFORE YOU BUY

There are three steps to analyzing real estate.

1. The operating return is measured, without any reference to financing.
2. The effects of financing and leverage are added.
3. The expected capital gain over the life of the deal is added.

1. Calculate the Operating Return

1. Start with the rent saved (or earned, if this is an investment property).
2. Subtract operating costs that include an allocation for lumpy purchases that don't occur each year.
3. Divide the net yearly income by the total property cost (that includes the original legal and transaction costs).

The dollar value of the operating return will increase over time as rents increase - roughly in line with increases in the market value of property. You should not factor the increase into your calculated operating return %. Consider this like the stable 4% dividend paid by banks on their stock. As the bank grows, the value of its stock grows, and the dividend also grows, but remains at 4% of the stock price. The owners realizes 4% + capital gains over time.

This operating return may be over 8%, or it may be as low as 2.5%. It may be that in areas of the country that experience higher increases in house prices, the operating return is lower. And vice versa. Investors looking to buy rental properties look outside the major cities where the rents are higher compared to the selling prices. But in these areas the capital appreciation will be lower. If anyone has seen research that looks at this, please e-mail this site with the reference.

2. Leverage

will amplify the asset's return. Obviously there will be no effect if the R/E is paid for with cash and no mortgage. Otherwise, compare the %return calculated in 1. with the %cost of any debt. Review your understanding of leverage. If the debt% is higher than the operating return% (which is frequently the case), your net operating returns will be NEGATIVE for the portion financed by debt.

Calculate your weighted average return and be comfortable with the reduced return. It is at this point that many people should walk away. E.g. if your Operating Return is 4%, mortgage rate is 6% and you finance 75% of the purchase: (25% * 4%) + (75% * -2%) = 0.5% loss yearly. That net loss will only be recovered from the eventual capital gains on sale.

3. Capital Gains

are only realized when the R/E is sold. They will not be there to tide you through any low return calculated in (2.). When R/E is booming, all attention is on capital gains, but most of the time the benefits come from the operating return. The gain at the end is just icing on the cake. It has no nutrition.

The media sometimes publishes articles relating all the facts of a supposedly normal situation. They always 'prove' how great an investment the R/E was. Now that you know how to calculate the return, reverse engineer their example. Every time, you will find that the example's operating return percent is greater or equal to the debt's interest rate. In real life the opposite is most often true.

Real estate agents have a sales pitch 'proof' that purchasing will cost you less than renting. They take the cash flow to cover the mortgage, and compare it to your current rent. This argument is wrong. First: it does not include the extra ongoing costs of owning property. Second: it presumes a 0% return on the cash portion of the purchase price. The argument can be made to support any priced property, by increasing the deposit and decreasing the mortgage. But all investors should require a return on any investment, including the real estate downpayment.

SPREADSHEETS

Rate of Return from Ownership

• Calculate the rate of return you actually realized from a property. The default example shows a typical condo with predicted 4% operating returns and a 20% realized capital gain. But when all the cash flows are included, the return actually realized was NEGATIVE. Download

Canadian Mortgage calculators

• Karl has a very good Canadian mortgage calculator that permits you to input changing rates as you expect your variable mortgage to change. It also allows for pre-payments. The only thing it does not integrate is the fees for changes
• For Monthly payments mortgage, create an amortization table. See the effect of changing a payment. Download
• For Weekly payments mortgage, create an amortization table. See the effect of changing a payment. Download
• For Bi-Weekly payments mortgage, create an amortization table. See the effect of changing a payment. Download
• Decide whether it is better to invest your savings elsewhere, or pay down your mortgage. This calculates the rate of return you earn from paying down the mortgage. Download
• Compare different possible mortgages with different fees and different interest rates. This calculates the APR percent that factors all fees into one metric. Download

Beware of mortgage calculators on the web. The Canadian calculations for quoted interest rates are different from the US rates. An explanation of the difference is available from here. Also do NOT use the NY Times or Gummy's calculator for the rent vs buy decision. Gummy's is simply wrong, and the NY Times includes a lot of preset variables they don't readily disclose. It's inclusion of a 'lost opportunity cost' for BOTH options is wrong. To compare apples to apples you must include the income that would have been earned by the cash used for a purchase. But this difference should be added or subtracted from ONE option only.

CO-OPS

While most buyers understand condominiums, few understand either co-ops or leaseholds. Instead of making the effort to learn, many simply walk away without even considering the option. The problem starts with the real-estate agents themselves. THEY don't understand the differences. Even when the agent himself lives in a co-op, he can be completely ignorant (and in denial) about the simple fact regarding whether the co-op corporation hold a mortgage on the property.

Like leaseholds, co-ops come in all shapes and sizes. The major distinction you should recognize is between privately-held co-ops and the government sponsored/financed co-ops whose purpose is to provide rent subsidies. Here, we are talking about only private co-ops.

There is an excellent paper written in 2006 for the New York University. It details the differences between a condo and a co-op, and presents a model for apartment valuations showing the impact on price from different attributes of the property. These are interesting for any purchaser.

HOW TO VALUE LEASEHOLD PROPERTY

A leasehold property has two owners. One owns the land and all residual rights to the property at the lease's end. The lease holder has only a temporary right to use the property and a responsibility for all costs. He may have little say over the management of the property or its upgrades and maintenence - although he will be billed the costs. The property can be an apartment building or a single home - no difference.

Leaseholds are valued less than fee-simple property for two reasons. First, the lease payments will increase the ongoing costs. Second, at the end of the lease your rights come to an end. You may walk away with nothing, or you enter a new contract at the up-to-date market values. Buyers deal with the second problem by making different assumptions.

1. They assume that governments will intervene at the lease's end, forcing a renewal at low cost. And assume that when they sell, the next buyer will believe the same. In other words the second issue does not exist. If you believe this then you treat the lease as if it continues forever. The leasehold's discount to a fee-simple property equals the capitalized cost of the extra lease payments. E.g. When a leasehold's ongoing costs are $4,000 per year higher than for a fee-simple property, and you want a 4% return, the discount will be $4,000 / 4% = $100,000.
   So you are willing to pay $100,000 less than for a similar free-simple property.

2. They assume that they will die before the lease's end without having to sell it to finance long-term-care. And assume that they don't care about the value of any estate left to heirs. In this case too the second problem is treated as if it does not exist. You need only consider the additional lease costs over your remaining lifetime (say 20 yrs). (PVA pmt=4,000 i=4% n=20) You would use a $54,361 discount.

3. They assume that they walk away with nothing at the end of the lease. Or, that the new lease's terms effectively zero out all ownership's value. This buyer will discount the purchase price by the sum of two factors: the PV of the excess operating costs over the term of the lease, plus the amount that must be invested today to buy a replacement property at the end of the lease. This calculation gets pretty complicated. Instead of deriving the value from the value of fee-simple properties, derive the value directly from rental rates.

   Considers the leasehold interest as prepaid partial rent over the lease term (say 50 years). Find out the total costs of renting the equivalent property. Subtract the total ongoing costs of the lease. Calculate the Present Value of the difference. If the ongoing lease costs are $8,000 less than market rents, then the Present Value of Annuity = $171,857. ( PVA pmt=8,000, i%=4%, n=50). You would value the leasehold at $171,857.

   It could be argued that instead of the "present value of an annuity" calculation, the "present value of a growing annuity" should be used. This would be because both the market rents and operating costs would be increasing each year: the difference along with them. Using "a growing annuity" results in a value for the property that can be 30% higher. The argument against presuming the annuity will grow rests on the fact that as real estate ages, the costs for upkeep rise at a faster rate than just inflation.

INVESTMENT POSSIBILITIES IN REAL ESTATE

There are many different ways to invest in real estate. It is probably the most common progression beyond savings products. R/E offers a higher return without assuming as much risk as the stock market.

• Individual Ownership
  • Residential Property for a principal residence, second home or for rental. It is legally called 'fee-simple' or 'freehold' when you own registered title to all the land and buildings. It is called 'strata' or 'condominium' when your title is restricted to only a part of the property, with the common areas shared.
  • Leaseholds have no ownership rights. In exchange for an occupancy lease, you assume responsibility for costs during a specified period of time.
  • Mobile Home on either leased land or owned strata titled land.
  • Industrial and Commercial property can be bought individually by investors or professionals for their own use or for rental.
  • Multi-units Buildings to be leased out as residential, industrial or commercial.
  • Agreement For Sale. The investor retains title to a property occupied by someone without the necessary downpayment to purchase. The rent charged includes an additional amount for the tenant's option and right to purchase after (say) five years. The extra rent gets considered as partial payment of the purchase price, or forfeited if there is no purchase.
• Group Ownership
  • Residential Property can be shared. A private agreement can be written for joint tenants or tenants in common. This is common for single family homes that have been 'unofficially' subdivided. Co-ops are shared ownership with the same rights and obligations as condos, but without individual titles for each unit. All are owned by a corporation, itself jointly owned, and tenancy rights exist as a lease attached to the share ownership in the corporation. Fractional ownerships have more complicated legal properties.
  • Limited Partnership Units with a group of investors which may be either private or public. They may invest in bare land, or development projects, etc. There is usually a foreseeable end date.
  • Time Shares sell occupancy rights for only a limited period of time each year. You may remain exposed to common costs without participating in possible upside appreciation of the property in total.
  • Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) units that are usually publicly traded on stock exchanges.
• Debt Products
  • Canadian Mortgage and Housing (CMHC) Bonds available from full-service stock brokers.
  • Personal Mortgages extended to family and friends, or offered as a sweetener on property you sell to a stranger.
  • Second Mortgages offered to retail investors by special businesses who group investor's capital.
  • Mutual Funds holding mortgages.
  • Rent To Own. The investor retains title to the property, but no cash flow risk and only a slightly reduced ability to realize capital gains. The tenant pays monthly rents to cover ALL expenses: mortgage payments, property tax, utilities, maintenance, etc. At a specified time (say 5 years) the tenant has the option to buy the property at a price determined by an appraised value, less the normal agents' commission, less (say) 25 percent of any capital gains since the start of the agreement (or plus 25 percent of an losses in value).
• Derivatives
  • Futures Contracts on US real estate prices based on the Case-Shiller Housing Price index.
  • ETF's from MacroShares allow you to bet on the upside (N-UMM) or downside (N-DMM) of the Case-Shiller index.

MORE ON CAPITAL GAINS APPRECIATION

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here are some graphs. Watch out which are 'real' returns (i.e. after inflation has been subtracted). They support the idea that owners should not expect price appreciation to be more than about one or two percent greater than the rate of inflation. This historical trend has been broken since 2000. At that time, instead of correcting, the real return continued to soar. The question investors must ask: "Will this abnormality be corrected?"

Your anticipation of capital gains is based on the tracking of average/median prices, but statistics can be misleading. The average includes prices from a wide band of different prices for different properties.

1. If you buy a new property, it will start at the top of the range. After 25 years, it will sit at the bottom of the range. Your personal return will be less than the average because you must subtract both the premium to the average on purchase and the discount to the average on sale.
2. The difference in yearly capital appreciation between the top decile of home sales, and bottom decile, was about 20%/yr in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s it narrowed to about 10% but has widened again this century.
3. A boom in new construction will distort averages. Newer, expensive units will more heavily weight the average.
4. Remember to not compare apples to oranges. The average price in the 1970s bought a house of 1,100 square fee. In 2010 new houses average 2,000 square feet. Values are most heavily determined by square feet: building and land.

The point here is that statistics must be fully understood. Don't accept them at face value. Don't think they will guarantee you make a fortune. These graphs show that returns vary geographically and over different time frames. It is just like the stock market.

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