Jeff Bezos' Bet On Housing Slide — His Single-Family Rental Play Appears Well-Timed

It should be obvious that billionaires don’t accumulate wealth by accident. Their success is predicated on observation and savvy investment, and a privileged background helps.

Billionaires like Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates likely saw an opportunity for land investment to return tenfold, by way of food shortages, well ahead of time.

So it should be no surprise that the real estate investing platform Arrived Homes, backed by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos is taking off. He had the foresight with Amazon to turn a book company into a get-it-now, everything provider.

Hindsight is 20/20, but after a global pandemic, turmoil in the stock market for years to come is not unexpected. The stock market has been wildly unpredictable and extremely volatile this year. Whether it's from the words of Elon Musk or Jerome Powell, the market fluctuates as a result.

Additionally, the U.S. may be moving from a housing boom into a housing bust. Musk said that recession is inevitable, and Jerry Howard (CEO of the National Association of Home Builders) shared similar thoughts. If housing has led us into every recession, the U.S. could be headed for one now.

These trends seem obvious now to many. However, Bezos noticed early and took action. With his bet on Arrived Homes, Bezos bet on a downturn, and the conditions are now perfect. Home prices and interest rates are high. At the same time, the stock market is as volatile as ever, if not floundering, so people are looking for safer options. With homeownership off the table for many, but real estate still looking promising to those who can afford it, fractional ownership feels right to the everyman.

Bezos not only made a bet on this being the case last year, but he doubled down on it earlier this year. Interested investors are joining the movement, as Arrived Homes has delivered to investors early and continues to show promise as housing prices cool, but rent growth remains strong.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em — Bezos certainly stands to make money off his gamble, but so can the average investor with as little as $100 to invest. Investing in fractional ownership will not only to diversify your portfolio, but help hedge against a volatile market.

Arrived Homes offers shares of single-family rentals with investments ranging from $100 to $10,000. Investors collect passive income from the rental payments, while Arrived handles all of the property management headaches. Earlier this month, Arrived launched its first vacation rental offerings on the platform. The first of these offerings was fully funded in under 30 minutes

Fractional real estate allows investors to use dollar cost averaging and invest through all market cycles, instead of having to time the market and predict the right time to buy.

Photo: Courtesy of National Museum of Amer on flickr

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