Would you rather invest in real estate (RE) or internet marketing (IM)?

I'd invest in IM.

Where else can you make $1 million by investing $5 million?

Steve

I depends on the time-frame. A house 30 years later is a great asset. A website 30 years later is... well... nobody knows... but it's NOT a house.

A house 10 months later may be a loss on investment. A website 10 months later can give you a great profit.

There are many other factors as well, but time is one of the important ones.

Will Google value an older site more than a new site when competing with the same keyword? So in that sense a 30 year old web site may weigh more than a 10-month site from search engine perspective?

These two are from far ends of investment risks spectrum. While real estate is considered low risk investment, IM is high risk--but of course, this also means a lot more profit.

Internet marketing is not a business so your original question doesn't make much sense.

Depends where your expertise and passion lies in my opinion. If you have no passion for either one then you will more than likely be throwing that money away.

On a long term investment perspective real estate is not a bad way to go. If you can put down a decent down payment on a house and get your monthly payments around $400-$500 a month (not bad for a $75-100k house) and then charge $1,000 a month. Not only will you be paying off your house, you will be getting a small passive income for not having to do much. You then get insurance to cover major issues and you shouldn't have a huge issue. Then a year passes and you go back to the bank and tell them that you were able to pay everything on time and ask them to finance you on another house. Continue doing this over and over until you have a decent amount of rent houses all paying for themselves on top of a small passive income from each one.

The large ROI comes when you finally pay off those houses and are able to turn around and resell them. That is a pure profit since you did not have to put any amount in to the house.

My uncle does this and he now owns 40 houses in a college town and rarely has any houses unrented. It did take him a while, but now he is doing extremely well and not having to do very much at all.

A great mind once said...

"The loneliest number is 1."
- Dan Kennedy

I do lots with both. Why must it be an either or? Diversified income is a lot safer than all your eggs in one basket.

Depends.
In my country, i prefer to invest in IM, but i belive in the USA for example, there are alot of very inetersting opportunities with real estate. Big $$ potential.

With the RE market being as cheap as it is now and an increasing number of people looking to rent, investing in RE is a no-brainer.

Wow yaji! That's a tough one. While I have become more interested in investing in

real estate lately. I love internet marketing with passion. I was always told if you can

get paid from during something you enjoy to stick with it. So I'm going to say I'm

going to stick with marketing.

Kind Regards

I say IM because creating tailored solutions to a target market, in the form of information products...digital delivery...little to no overhead... it's pretty tough to beat 500% ROI.

THE INTERNET ISN'T GOING ANYWHERE!

Besides, a lot of Real Estate Investors leverage the Internet to create additional sources of income (work on more deals, get more leads, create informational products).

I'm no expert on Real Estate but I do know it has made more millionaires in history than anything else... however, moving forward all REI investors will turn to the internet, whether it be to teach their strategies or to work on more deals and scale their main business (example: Robert Kiyosaki)

Internet marketing

Those are two totally different things, so the question doesn't make sense to me.

A more accurate question might be: do you wish to acquire a company that owns and manages corporate real estate or do you wish to acquire a company that performs marketing services.... Is that what you are meaning?

IM without question. I've owned rental property and it's a hassle. You have to like that work. I love IM, so I'd rather do IM. Gotta do what you like. Both can be extremely lucrative or a money drain. Gotta learn it, love it and persist.

I like the cash flow and low overhead with IM. Property is the opposite. However, what's the best investment in 30 years? Tough to say. If you make a ton of cash from IM for 30 years, you can invest it. Once a property is paid off, it's a great cash machine and an asset.

Best thing is do what you like doing.

I invest time, effort, skills and energy in internet marketing, and money in real estate.

With money, I pick real estate. I never invested more than about $100 in my internet marketing business (but I put in an enormous amount of work), and when I started it, there wasn't a time when having a few thousand extra to invest in it would have made my income any faster, bigger or safer than it was. I appreciate that that's not true of all IM business models, of course.

Definitely IM. I did real estate a while but didn't get my foot all the way in the door. I turned to IM cuz I saw thats where the most money was coming from with the least amount of effort.

I was sending out emails making money. Lol. Real estate, I was out til 3am putting out signs trying to sell houses...

But really it's to each his own. I have one friend who does both and he'd choose REI no doubt. Simply because he's mastered.

I started in real estate in 2001. I bought a two family home and lived in the bottom half. The tenant upstairs paid for 95% of my mortgage and I rarely got bothered for repairs. In my mind, it's a smart first step for a first home, but unfortunately, I did not stop there.

I bought two more two-family homes in 2003, another single family home in 2008, and once we grew a family, I bought another single family home. So I have seven "units" right now, and while I cash flow a little over $2000 a month I hate it...and can't get out from underneath it.

So looking for other means of passive income about six months ago, I turned to IM, which is infinitely difficult but without the tenant headaches. I suppose if you get into IM services, you still have issues, but I haven't gone down that path. I build sites and write kindle books and it's all for myself right now.

The answer to the question completely depends on your mentality, however every one I know around here who's been in the real estate landlording business has fought hard to get out of it recently. That means opportunities for people wanting to get in, but I'd be surprised if in five or ten years the "newbies" wouldn't be wanting to get out too.

For investing money, Reals estate hands down….This is why..

- I know way more about real estate investing than IM. If you had say 500k to invest in IM, I’m not even sure what you would invest in. You could use it to start an IM business, but that is not very passive.

- I don’t invest in rental property. There are better ways to make money in RE if you put your mind to work. Learn notes and you will find you can make just as much or more without the tenant headaches.

- If you learn a bit you can make high yields and be very safe in RE. You need to understand risk.

- You can start a self directed IRA and grow that money tax free until retirement if you choose.

Depending on the situation, I might consider real estate, but generally, the prices are misallocated, so unless there is a severe misallocation to the downside (prices go way down), I would say no on that. Personally, I would invest more in IM or stocks (although it is hard to find value right now in stocks).

RE investing is certainly easier now in a buyer's market, as so many sellers are trying to unload their property. The issue is whether the investor can currently make money with the properties purchased. There are many more deep financial risks involved in RE (keeping the mortgage payments current, repairs, tenant management, etc) than in IM. If the risks can be handled or mitigated, RE can work, otherwise those with weaker constitutions should stick with IM.

Capitalize on internet marketing first to make the investment for real-estate. Real-estate holds life-long value that only appreciates over time, similar to online marketing, the value and threshold will increase but it'll be harder to break as each year goes on...

I'll always go for internet marking.

Interesting thread...
Its something I do both of. IM and a few other business ideas allowed me to invest in property so without it my life wouldn't be like it is now. My IM practically does all it needs to on its own for most of the year until the 3-4 months when I am heavily involved in coaching IM. With property lets averaging 6 months and the property in good condition being fairly newly built it requires little attention and tenants want to be left alone, The agency collect the rent and take a cut so I don't do any of that.

and the person who said IM is not a business?? Information Marketing using the internet is where its at right now, the internet is growing massively each and every day with people selling information as a product or service. Thats a crazy statement to make. IM is a multi billion dollar industry with thousands of businesses and individuals cashing in on it.

If it was a one-off, flipping of a property or a lot, I would do it (again). But to become a rental property owner is something I have no interest in.

A friend of mine owns several rental properties. For each property he had to amass a sizable down payment (approximately 40-80k) and because he bought at a relatively opportune time he makes 100-200 per month above mortgage each month.

But that doesn't include all the joys that comes with being a landlord -- repairs, dealing with delinquent tenants, mediating between tenants who squabble, and on and on. It's been a major pain in the ass to him, and it distracts him from his day job (realtor, of course).

With a fraction of that money you could easily scale your business. Invest in yourself and your business. You have control over that. Unless you want to be a slumlord, and in that case go nuts

Well as someone who invests in both I can tell you this

1) Both of them take hard focused work, and you will not get rich quick in either.
In both of these industries you will run into people who are going to try and sell you on their secrets and strategies on how they struck it rich in IM or Real Estate. Both industries have their snake oil salesman so make sure no matter which you enter you practice your due dilligence.

2) Both of them have their myths or misconsceptions surrounding them
Look at some of the information in this post about not wanting to deal with tenants, repairs, broken water heaters, etc. What these people don't understand is it is so easy to find a Management Company to handle all of that stuff for a fee. Just like IM you don't have to do everything yourself, however in Real Estate there is no such thing as "set and forget"


3) Both of them have their own Misinformation surrounding them and alot of people who claim to be experts handing out advice that they shouldn't
Alot of people when they think of investing in Real Estate think of Flipping or selling for a profit. But that is only one aspect just like IM. Or you will have people who don't know about Real Estate repeating how it is risky. Well it is if you don't know what you are doing, but you can decrease risk through education. And you will have alot of people who will have seen a "Real Estate Flippping" Show on TV and be able to talk about it enough to make the uninformed think that these people know what they are talking about. Or they will have seen reports from New Anchors about the economy and how that affects Real Estate and these people then potray themselves as experts. So again you have to practice due dilligence.

What? Basically you are asking unfamiliars what is your situation... However.. Depends on the market situation and yours. Your strenghts and opportunities and some other factors. I think you better practice more decision making skills before investing hence you know better yourself. There is a good section in the forum about - mind warriors.

Ive done both.

Real estate in many ways has funded my IM stuff.

Unlike real estate, the problem with IM is the low barrier to entry, which means every man and his dog is in here.

If at least I know a little about the RE, I would prefer to invest there.

If i have a lot of money, i will do Real estate investment. Like now, i had buy a few acre of land at my local village. For me, if economic of the world demolish, only land can save me.

I have done both. I am not sure how lucrative is RE in your region but in Singapore RE rocks! I wish I had more money to invest in RE.

I'd rather invest on land property, since its prices never fail to go up. I'm also a longterm thinker, so I'd rather invest on something that even my great grandchildren will benefit from it.
Internet Marketing is a great way to gain income, however, you are talking about realtime monetization right here. Websites, blogs, and other ways of earning online fades too quickly (given a few years), unless you found a really unique, untouched niche that people will still patronize even if its competitors and related products die out.

I'd pick Real Estate.

Reason: it is always appreciating and there is no such rules that could wipe off an income stream in the real estate industry - except, of course, some natural or national disasters, lol

If you have a huge budget to invest in real estate, you can score it big in no time and bring part of your revenues online if you are so obsessed with the internet (like most of us are).

I made the decision to stop investing in real estate about 10 years ago when I realized that 'virtual' real estate or websites have a greater upside and less of a down side for me.

I find them very similar as a domain name is your land and the website becomes the property. I look for run down properties, IE a website that is earning a bit of money but has got great potential to do better just by making a few changes and driving more traffic.

Many of these sites can be bought very cheaply sometimes as low as 2x earnings and once 'fixed up' can easily go for 10x which is a great ROI.

Even better if you are skilled in many aspects of IM, you can build them from the ground up and drive traffic to them.

The monthly rental income (Adsense, CPA etc) from these sites is great and more than covers your expenses with no hassle from Tenants or void months.

As in any business you need to develop a skill set to manage and market your 'properties' but it's a lot easier (especially on this forum) to find someone you can outsource the work to.

that's depend on the person and on the available money too....some persons are very skillfull in the offline market but hasn't have the knowledge of internet...but while some are a mastermind on internet didn't have the knowledge of offlline field....

If I have to choose one from them then I will definitely go for realstate if I have sufficient money because money is everything in a realstate...but if i have don't then i will try my luck on internet because it is very vast and have something for everyone..for a 10$ person and for a 1 million$ person too....

It depends where you live, since taxes can make real estate costly

I would definitely do real estate. If you know what you are doing you certainly can make more money with less work. I currently do both and wouldn't have it any other way. There are places you can go to get the proper guidance on what you need to look for when investing in real estate.