RE Income vs Appreciation over 20 Years
📚 Explain this Chart to a Five Year Old: Imagine you have a lemonade stand. Every week, people buy lemonade from you. That money comes in no matter what. Rain or shine. That's the gray bars. Sometimes your lemonade stand becomes worth MORE because everyone wants one. That's the orange bars going up. Sometimes it becomes worth LESS because nobody thinks lemonade stands are cool anymore. That's the orange bars going down. But here's the thing - even when nobody thinks your stand is cool, people still buy lemonade. The gray bars never stop. So the smart move? Don't worry about what people think your lemonade stand is worth. Just keep selling lemonade. 📊 More in-depth Explanation: This is J.P. Morgan's breakdown of global private real estate returns split into two components: income (gray bars) and capital appreciation (orange bars). Data is rolling 4-quarter returns from the MSCI Global Property Fund Index, through Dec 31, 2025. The two components: • Income (gray) - rent/cash flow yield. Incredibly stable - roughly 4-5% every single year regardless of market conditions. Never goes negative. This is why real estate is attractive as an asset class. • Capital appreciation (orange) - change in property values. This is where all the volatility lives. The story in three phases: 2009-2011: GFC recovery. Capital appreciation swung from -25% to +15% in two years. Wild ride. Income stayed steady at ~5% the whole time. 2012-2019: The boring years. Capital appreciation settled around 3-5%, stacking on top of income for consistent 8-10% total returns. This was the golden era. 2020-2025: The cycle you're living through. • 2021: COVID recovery boom - capital appreciation spiked to ~18-19%. Property values surged. • 2022-2023: Rate hikes crushed values. Capital appreciation went to roughly -12 to -15%. But income STILL held at 4%. • 2024-2025: Bottoming out and recovering. Capital appreciation coming back toward 0%, income still steady. The takeaway for you: Income is the anchor. It never breaks. The people who got destroyed in '22-'23 were the ones who overpaid during the '21 spike and were overleveraged when values corrected. If you're buying for cash flow (which MHP operators should be), the gray bars are what matter - and they never flinch.