Best Investment Option During Times of Inflation?

The latest reports on inflation have given the economy indigestion. The Consumer Price Index hit 9.1%, the Producer Price Index hit 11.3%, and the Fed’s preferred gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index or PCE, hit 6.8%. They are all signs that inflation is much too high and the reason the Federal Reserve just hiked short term interest rates another whopping three-quarters of a percent. So what’s the best way to invest when inflation is working against you? (1, 2, 3) Hi, I'm Kathy Fettke and this is Real Estate News for Investors. If you like our podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review. Four Peaks Capital put together a great list of all the options that I received in an email which I will share with you in this episode. The company is mostly focused on large multi-family projects, but this list pertains to everyone. Investing Options 1 - First on the list is cash. It’s not an investment as much as it is a way to preserve a certain quantity of money. But when there’s a high rate of inflation, that same quantity of money will be worth less over time. As Four Peaks explains: Putting $100,000 under your mattress for something you want to buy in a year, won’t cover the cost. At today’s rate of inflation, you’ll need an additional 9.1% or $9,100. So hiding your money under the mattress isn’t a great idea if you don’t want to lose money. Warren Buffett would agree. He says: “The first rule of an investment is don’t lose money. The second rule of an investment is don’t forget the first rule.” Let’s take a look at your other options. 2 - You can invest in stocks. Wall Street is a magnet for investor enthusiasm and money, but people are often invested at the worst possible times. A period of inflation is typically one of those times. As inflation rises and the Federal Reserve raises rates, stocks often fall because it’ll cost more money for companies to get the funding they need to do business. We’ve seen some major stock losses lately because of investor concerns on inflation. 3 - Crypto, Blockchain, and NFTs have become a new investment category, and it’s gotten a lot of attention, but it’s also very volatile. The crypto market had soared to a peak of about $3 trillion dollars, but when the economy got choppy, crypto got chopped. Investors liquidated their gains and the crypto market quickly shrank to just $1 trillion. The high-flying leader of the pack, Bitcoin, had actually hit $69,000 earlier this year but is now down to one third of that value. 4 - You can buy Certificates of Deposit, or CDs, as a more traditional and safer way to invest money. NerdWallet has a list of CDs, and its top choice is a CD with a fixed 5-year term at 3.35%. But even that percentage won’t make you money because inflation is so high. At 9.1%, inflation wipes out the gain and leaves you with a -5.75% loss. 5 - You can put your money into a Money Market Account. But the interest you’ll earn is even less than a CD. It’s more like 1% right now, although that could increase as the Fed raises rates, but at 1%, you stand to lose -8% of your investment because of inflation. 6 - High-Yield Savings Accounts are another option. They are supposed to give you a better interest rate than money market accounts. But the extra bump in interest only reduces the loss you’d get from a CD by a tiny amount. 7 - Annuities can provide better gains, but they still don’t offset today’s rate of inflation. Four Peaks explains it like this: “Some of the best fixed-income annuity rates right now hover in the 4.5% range, but that doesn't take into account administration fees of 1-3% annually, putting real rates at 1.5% to 3.5%. In the best-case scenario, the annual loss of the best annuity is -5.6% when considering inflation.” 8 - And then you have Treasuries. The 10-year treasury might give you 2.96%, but when you account for inflation, you end up with a loss of -6.41%. So, we’ve run through “eight” investing options and none of them make your money grow when inflation is as high as it is. That leaves us with an eighth option that covers a lot of “ground,” no pun intended. As Four Peaks puts it: “Cash flowing tangible assets tied to essential goods… that consumers will always need… like shelter.” Four Peaks says: “That’s why certain classes of commercial real estate like affordable housing will thrive in downturns.” 9 - The ninth option is real estate. At RealWealth, we focus on single-family rentals which also provide a tangible asset that’s in high demand. The foreclosure crisis produced the first big surge in demand for single-family rentals. And now we’re seeing a new surge because people who can’t afford to buy a home, still crave the single-family lifestyle. We recently had an investor on my other podcast, The Real Wealth Show, who was not discouraged by today’s market. Jimmy Vreeland believes that the housing market slowdown is providing an opportunity for investors to find deals, and there's no better time to buy real estate than the present. He says: “You don’t wait to buy real estate. You buy real estate, and wait.” In other words, the value of your real estate will go up in time. Jimmy talks about how you can maximize that potential with the "value add" concept. Plus, when you borrow money, like most people do when acquiring real estate, you are getting another hedge against inflation. It's like the inflation is eating away at your debt. If you are interested in hearing more about how to invest in real estate when prices are high, please check out Jimmy’s interview. He’s both entertaining and inspiring. You’ll find it at newsforinvestors.com. Just click on the Learn tab. You’ll find the interview under the Real Wealth Show with the title “Invest Now or Wait?” And please remember to hit the subscribe button, and leave a review! Thanks for listening. I'm Kathy Fettke. Links: 1 - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coming-up-consumer-price-index-for-june-11657713665 2 - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-wholesale-prices-surge-again-and-signal-inflation-is-still-running-hot-11657802432 3 - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/coming-up-pce-inflation-and-consumer-spending-11659096833