Consumers voted for real estate as their top long-term investment choice for a third year in a row, according to the latest Bankrate.com survey. No-risk cash investments came in second, and stocks came in third.

Consumers’ Favorite Investments

Bankrate.com asked: What is the best way to invest money you don’t need in 10 years or more?

• Real Estate: 28%


• Cash investments: 23%


• Stock market: 17%


• Gold: 15%


• Bonds: 4%


• Other: 6%

Source: Bankrate

“If you have a long time horizon, you will win in real estate,” Abhi Golhar, a real estate investor in Atlanta, told Bankrate. The housing market has bounced back from its bottom in 2011, and during the last 12 months ending in May, home prices have risen 6.6 percent, according to data from CoreLogic.

“Toss in persistently low interest rates, tax goodies that come with owning a mortgage, and the psychological payoff from planting your roots, and maybe it’s no wonder real estate remains popular,” Bankrate reports about the survey results.

Broken out by age group, younger adults divided their vote for the soundest long-term investments between real estate and cash at 30 percent each. Stocks trailed at 13 percent, behind gold. “Contrary to the notion that millennials don’t want to buy homes, their preference for real estate as a long-term investment is exceeded only by their counterparts in Gen X,” says Greg McBride, Bankrate’s chief financial analyst.

Source: “You Probably Have the Wrong Idea When it Comes to Investments. Let’s Fix That,” Bankrate (July 19, 2017)