That $2400 a month condo on Rengsdorf I posted about, owned by a friend, finally rented. In the 90’s it was getting $1500. Pretty crappy cash flow; not even staying even with inflation. The La Honda home I bought in 2012 was purchased in '89 for 245 and sold 23 years later for 275 after some upgrades. Again, terrible investment in one of the hottest counties in the nation even with a 23 year hold time.
I remember reading a newspaper story after the crash of '87. Someone bought an index fund in the 60’s through a broker. Market tanked in the early 70’s and he just stopped looking at the value; had dividends on auto-reinvest. The guy read the '87 headlines - “crash”, “meltdown”, “collapse.” Called his broker to see “how much he had left.” His investment was up 8 fold partly due to those 8% dividends he’d been dollar cost averaging in when the Dow was at 500-600. That’s the power of do-nothing index investing and why I don’t do real estate as an investment. Buy stocks in a boom, hold a couple decades, check value after a crash and you’re still way, way up.