Los Angeles has so many investment opportunities it can be challenging to know where to start. Chief among them is the city’s hyper-competitive real estate market. The Los Angeles real estate market is among the most lucrative in the country.
The premium real estate across the city and explosive niche markets present incomparable investor opportunities in LA.
Why Is Real Estate Such a Good Investment?
Real estate has distinctive properties that set it apart from other asset classes. Unlike stocks and bonds, real estate investment opportunities possess underlying stability that makes them more attractive to investors due to these unique characteristics.
Understanding the properties that define real estate as an asset helps you better identify quality opportunities that exemplify the advantages of investing in property.
What Are the Special Properties Of Real Estate?
Improvability of Real Estate
Real estate has a significant advantage over other asset classes because of the improvability of its value. After acquiring securities like stocks and bonds, investors have no control over their value.
The increase or decrease of their shares is determined entirely by market performance. Real estate is different: property value can be actively improved by investors.
Improvements on a property raise its value; everything from new kitchen cabinets to a complete home renovation directly impacts the property’s value. So, how does improvability make real estate a better opportunity for investors?
The improvability of real estate gives investors more control over the value of their assets. Property owners can directly impact the increasing value of their property by making additions, repairs, and other value-adding improvements.
By gaining more control over the value of an asset, investors are better suited to protect their return and improve their profits.
Permanence of Investment
Investors have more control over the value of their real estate assets due to their improvability; the permanence of these investments ensures that the increased value of a property remains secure.
The capital that goes into a property is virtually guaranteed to stay there. Foundational investments into a property, like water connections, electrical wiring, and plumbing, are effectively permanent.
The capital spent on these investments becomes intertwined with the property. Investments into property can be so foundational that it doesn’t make sense to undo them. Moreover, the land itself is immobile and indestructible; owning land is guaranteed due to its fixity.
An asset’s stability is a massive determinant of its success; if an asset can endure market shifts and retain its value over time, it becomes all the more attractive for long-term investments. The fixity of real estate investments provides a rock-solid foundation that strengthens confidence in their long-term potential.
Scarcity
The inherent scarcity of real estate ensures it retains a consistent value. Supply and demand are the most fundamental laws of economics: value increases when supply is low, and demand is high, and vice versa.
Real estate generally maintains a consistently high demand in relation to supply due to the scarcity baked into the asset class. The land is a finite resource. When land in a given area is acquired, that’s it. The supply of land necessarily decreases.
Developed areas face extreme land scarcity with no potential for new land. Additionally, development is an expensive and time-consuming process, which slows the pace of new supply.
The inherent scarcity in real estate protects its baseline value. Limited by scarcity and slow development, supply rarely outpaces demand. Demand, on the other hand, is nearly constant.
With an increasing demand for property from the most significant generation demographic, millennials, real estate value can be expected to stay strong as supply remains consistently low due to inherent scarcity.
Location
The most distinctive characteristic of real estate is locational preference. Location profoundly impacts the value of a given asset, and choosing the right location is a critical component of effective real estate investment strategies.
What sets one property apart from another is its location. Because of real estate’s immobility, location is a fixed characteristic that can make all the difference between two assets. For example, a single-family house in upstate New York will have a vastly different value than the same house in Los Angeles.
Location preference is exceptionally fluid. In most cities, area preference can make a difference on a block-by-block basis. The variance between area preferences in real estate means that investors can be more exact with where they put their money. Investors have the opportunity to choose assets based on potential area preference advantages.
Choosing to invest in an up-and-coming neighborhood presents the chance to make an explosive return. Christina’s in the Westside region is based on identifying high-potential niche neighborhoods on a locational basis.
What Are the Benefits of Real Estate?
Real estate’s unique characteristics translate into quality benefits that make investments worthwhile. Here are a few stand-out benefits of real estate investing to consider.
Tax Breaks
The tax break opportunities for property ownership make real estate investments all the more compelling. Real estate is the cornerstone of a properly functioning society. People need housing provided by residential properties; businesses lease commercial real estate to operate.
To ensure that substantial capital influx sustains real estate, the government provides numerous tax break opportunities for real estate investors. For investors, tax breaks create the opportunity for more robust returns and less stress on finances.
Here are a few tax break opportunities available to real estate investors:
- Depreciation
- Property tax write-offs
- Property insurance write-offs
- Mortgage interest write-offs
- Reduced taxes on long-term capitals gains
- 1031 exchanges
Inflation Hedge
Inflation can have devastating effects on savings. As the dollar’s purchasing power decreases, the interest generated by savings can be nullified. Funds can deteriorate at an increasing rate, putting your finances at risk.
Real estate investments provide a solid opportunity for offsetting the effects of inflation. Real estate rental properties absorb the impact of rising prices through their rental income; rising prices increase the cost of rent, protecting rental property owners from the weakening dollar.
Rising prices increase the value of a home as well. Holding an asset long-term insulates investors from the pains of a weakening dollar as property values absorb ballooning prices.
With inflation continuing to wreak havoc on the global economy, the benefits of Los Angeles real estate investments could be essential to securing your portfolio.
High Cash Flow
Real estate investment strategies like property rental can provide investors with solid cash flow. Cash flow measures how much cash goes into and comes out of a given asset. The higher the cash flow, the more money an asset generates for the holder.
Rental properties have a notably high cash flow. For one, they’re generally consistent. Monthly rental income payments are a stable and effective way to get constant cash infusions.
Considering the rent is set by the property owner, real estate investors have more control over the cash flow of their assets and, in turn, how the income earned from a property is used for additional investment opportunities.
High Appreciation
Real estate value has a high appreciation rate compared to other asset classes, making it a reliable, long-term investment. The inherent scarcity of real estate ensures that property values steadily increase over time.
With limited supply, a healthy level of standard inflation, and a consistently growing demand, property values can generally be expected to rise, especially in a long-term context. Since the 1960s, property values in the United States have increased consistently.
The reliable increase in value makes real estate a bankable investment. Investors can be confident that their real estate assets will continue to grow over time in the long run.
Why Is Los Angeles Real Estate Such a Good Investment Opportunity?
The value of real estate investment opportunities is clear, but why are these opportunities amplified in Los Angeles?
Los Angeles is a stand-out city regarding real estate for several reasons. Here are a few reasons why real estate investing is such a great opportunity in the City of Angels.
Historically Strong Market
Los Angeles has been a boom town for well over a century. Since development began to explode at the turn of the century, Los Angeles real estate has been amongst the highest-performing markets in the country.
California, and Los Angeles in particular, has been on the receiving end of an almost continuous wave of migration that sustains the local real estate market. The strong legacy of the Los Angeles real estate market matters because its sterling performance generates confidence amongst investors.
Billions of dollars of capital saturate the Los Angeles real estate market, establishing a financial bedrock for LA. real estate that keeps it stable and secure.
Thriving Economic Ecosystem
Los Angeles has come a long way from its oil tycoon boom town days. The city is home to multi-billion dollar industries that sustain every facet of the local economy, especially real estate metrics like property value.
A signature feature of the Los Angeles economy is the Port of Los Angeles, the largest port in the United States. As an unrivaled port city, Los Angeles benefits from the massive influx of goods streaming through it daily and the robust infrastructure required.
Los Angele’s most famous industry is the film and television industry. Home to Hollywood, the movie capital of the world, Los Angeles hosts many world-famous film studios that flush the city with billions of dollars a year.
Add in the increasing presence of tech giants moving to LA. due to the Silicon Beach phenomenon, and Los Angeles’ economy is truly befitted by its world-class city status — reflected in a solid real estate market.
Home to Premium Real Estate
Los Angeles’ most exclusive neighborhoods began as landing zones for wealthy oil tycoons. From the beginning, premium real estate defined the Los Angeles real estate market. The Westside of Los Angeles has some of the country’s most high-value real estate markets.
Homes in the Pacific Palisades, Holmby Hills, and Santa Monica can be valued in the millions. The caliber of real estate available in Los Angeles is peerless and sets a high standard for the quality of real estate assets across the city.
The vast range of properties available to investors — from luxury homes in the tens of millions to single-family homes — establishes the Los Angeles real estate market as the gold standard for investment opportunities.
What’s the Best Way to Invest in Los Angeles Real Estate?
Los Angeles has many premium assets in a robust real estate market. But it can be complicated to acquire these properties on your own.
Independently managing multi-million dollar properties is both time-consuming and expensive. While property ownership strategies like property rental or flipping houses can be lucrative, they are not feasible opportunities for most investors.
The best way to acquire premium Los Angeles is through a qualified real estate investment firm. Firms have the capital and the capability to acquire, manage, and help generate returns on Los Angeles’ most exclusive properties.
Invest With the Best
Christina thrived in Los Angeles’s most competitive real estate market for over four decades: the Westside. Our team has the resources, skill set, and network to connect you with the best assets to help increase your returns.
Get started with us today to help protect your financial future for tomorrow.
Sources:
Why Is Inflation So High? | Forbes
Welcome to America’s Port® | Port of Los Angeles