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\When people hear “invest like Elon Musk,” the first thing they think of is a cryptocurrency, but the entrepreneur put a threat out on Monday advising his followers also to own “physical things” when inflation is high.
Elon Musk is well known for his advocacy of cryptocurrencies. In fact, he tweeted this week: “I still own & won’t sell my Bitcoin, Ethereum or Doge FWIW.”
However, at this time of extraordinarily high inflation in the United States, Musk is doling out some advice for his Twitter followers on what he believes is smart investing during this challenging economic time.
“As a general principle, for those looking for advice from this thread, it is generally better to own physical things like a home or stock in companies you think make good products than dollars when inflation is high,” Musk tweeted on Monday evening.
Following Musk’s advice, physical assets are generally safer investments during periods of high inflation. The question becomes: what physical things are the best or safest investments?
In the Twitter thread, Musk referenced that owning a home or real estate, generally speaking, tends to perform well for investors during high inflation.
Investment site Benzinga, follows the thread closely. It is named for specific types of real estate that do well when inflation is high: Single-family homes, multifamily houses, self-storage, and farmland.
Of course, it may not be possible for all investors to go out and buy a property.
Luckily, there are ways to buy shares in funds that have portfolios of properties and purchase shares of fractionalizing real estate.
Shares of construction companies that develop subdivisions of homes are also a consideration.
A variety of crowdfunding platforms also make an investment in real estate possible.
Single-family homes: Check out crowdfunding platform Arrived Homes. Investors can buy shares of individual rental properties for as little as $100.
Multifamily houses: Platforms such as CrowdStreet or RealCrowd offer investment starting at $25,000.
Self-storage: RealCrowd has a minimum investment of $50,000.
Farmland: FarmTogether is offering shares of an organic vineyard in California for a minimum investment of $15,000.
*Caution: Do your due diligence when investing in farmland. For example, California is currently having water issues due to drought. The Guardian reported that the federal government announced it would not deliver any water to the Central Valley Project in California due to severe drought. So make sure your farmland investments aren’t in areas that might be challenged by limiting or lack of water supply.
