As a result, the landlord will be able to collect a bigger rental revenue over time. This allows you to keep up with the rising cost of living. As a result, real estate income is one of the most effective strategies to protect an investment portfolio against inflation.
How may real estate be used as an inflation hedge?
While inflation will reduce the net returns of bonds, stocks, and fixed-rate vehicles, real estate managers can lessen the effect of inflation by raising rents at managed properties. Naturally, this does not happen in all properties, property kinds, or markets. Have you ever had a landlord who seemed completely immune to the forces of inflation, leaving you with a ridiculously low rent? In order to properly combat inflation, forethought is required.
Here are a few strategies used by commercial real estate investors to reduce the risk of rising inflation:
- Rent increases are contractually tethered to higher fluctuations in the CPI through CPI indexation. While this may appear unnecessarily bureaucratic, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, when inflation was more rampant, it was fairly standard.
- Rent reviews that are built into leases on a regular basis. This is especially significant with longer-term agreements and/or when the property has few or only one tenant.
- Sponsors may be able to move part of the costs of renovating and managing a property to tenants by shifting operating and capital improvement expenditures to renters. Materials, services, and utilities, in particular, are likely to follow inflation. While this trend may necessitate lower gross rents in order to remain competitive in the leasing market, it can have a significant impact on net operating income (NOI) over the course of lengthier leases. This is true for non-residential CRE asset classes such as industrial, retail, and office.
The basic line is that we believe real estate can serve as a reliable inflation hedge, but only if it is properly managed. As a passive real estate investor, you might want to inquire if the sponsor has a plan in place to keep NOI growing at a rate that keeps up with inflation so that returns aren’t diluted over time.
How does real estate fare in the face of inflation?
Rising rental property rates are likely positives during periods of high inflation. It might be difficult to obtain a mortgage during periods of high inflation. Because high mortgage rates limit buyers’ purchasing power, many people continue to rent. Increased rental rates arise from the boost in demand, which is wonderful for landlords. While appreciation is a different market study, in general, in an inflationary economy, housing values tend to rise. People require roofs over their heads regardless of the value of their currency, hence real estate has intrinsic value. You’ll almost certainly have a line out the door if you can offer advantageous rates for private mortgages.
The increasing cost of borrowing debt is one of the potential downsides for a real estate investor during inflationary times. To avoid being shorted, the bank will charge higher interest rates and provide fewer loans. Another downside is the increased cost of construction materials for new residences. New building can be a tough investment during inflation due to the high cost of borrowing and the increased expense of construction. When money is tight, travel is frequently one of the first things to go. Vacation rentals, tourist destinations, and retirement communities may not perform as well as other real estate investments.
What is the greatest way to protect yourself against rising inflation?
You might not think of a house as a smart method to protect yourself against inflation, but if you buy it with a mortgage, it can be a great way to do so. With a long-term mortgage, you can lock in low financing for up to three decades at near-historically low rates.
A fixed-rate mortgage allows you to keep the majority of your housing costs in one payment. Property taxes will increase, and other costs will climb, but your monthly housing payment will remain the same. If you’re renting, that’s definitely not the case.
And, of course, owning a home entails the possibility of its value rising over time. Price appreciation is possible if additional money enters the market.
Stocks
Stocks are a solid long-term inflation hedge, even though they may be battered by nervous investors in the near term as their concerns grow. However, not all stocks are equivalent in terms of inflation protection. You’ll want to seek for organizations with pricing power, which means they can raise prices on their clients as their own costs grow.
And if a company’s profits increase over time, so should its stock price. While inflation fears may affect the stock market, the top companies are able to weather the storm thanks to their superior economics.
Gold
When inflation rises or interest rates are extremely low, gold has traditionally been a safe-haven asset for investors. When real interest rates that is, the reported rate of interest minus the inflation rate go below zero, gold tends to do well. During difficult economic times, investors often look to gold as a store of value, and it has served this purpose for a long time.
One effective way to invest in gold is to acquire it through an exchange-traded fund (ETF). This way, you won’t have to own and protect the gold yourself. Plus, ETFs provide you the option of owning actual gold or equities of gold miners, which can provide a bigger return if gold prices rise.
What investments do well in the face of inflation?
- In the past, tangible assets such as real estate and commodities were seen to be inflation hedges.
- Certain sector stocks, inflation-indexed bonds, and securitized debt are examples of specialty securities that can keep a portfolio’s buying power.
- Direct and indirect investments in inflation-sensitive investments are available in a variety of ways.
What do you do with cash when prices rise?
Maintaining cash in a CD or savings account is akin to keeping money in short-term bonds. Your funds are secure and easily accessible.
In addition, if rising inflation leads to increased interest rates, short-term bonds will fare better than long-term bonds. As a result, Lassus advises sticking to short- to intermediate-term bonds and avoiding anything long-term focused.
“Make sure your bonds or bond funds are shorter term,” she advises, “since they will be less affected if interest rates rise quickly.”
“Short-term bonds can also be reinvested at greater interest rates as they mature,” Arnott says.
What happens to real estate when inflation is high?
Many real estate investors are concerned about the impact of rising inflation on their assets and businesses. We see consumer prices rise as inflation rises, but what impact does this have on real estate?
Inflation has a number of real estate-related consequences, including higher mortgage rates, rising asset prices, depreciation of long-term debt, increased building costs, and so on. Let’s look at how inflation affects real estate assets and mortgages, as well as how investors might position themselves in a high-inflation climate.
Is it wise to purchase a home during an inflationary period?
Inflation is at 7.5 percent, while housing values have increased by 20% year over year. Supply, interest rates, and inflation are driving today’s fast rising house prices. Even if the prices are high now, buying now can save you money in the long term.
Should I sell my home when inflation is high?
The most obvious advantage is that your home’s value rises in tandem with inflation. With low supply and high demand, sellers can set their asking prices as high as they like and, in many circumstances, receive offers that are equal to or even more than their asking price.
How will you protect yourself from inflation in 2022?
During the epidemic, there was a surge in demand for products and labor, resulting in the fastest rate of consumer price and wage inflation since the early 1990s. As the pandemic passes and spending moves toward services rather than products, we believe inflation will reduce due to greater labor supply. In the end, it should not jeopardize our base case scenario, which predicts a significantly more vibrant cycle in the 2020s than we experienced in the 2010s.
However, both prices and salaries are expected to rise at a pretty rapid pace. We believe there are three ways for investors to navigate this climate.
Look to real estate for inflation protection
Because leases are regularly reset higher, real estate investors often profit from a natural inflation hedge. Furthermore, we believe the residential and industrial real estate sectors will benefit from strong structural tailwinds. Following the global financial crisis, chronic underbuilding (compared to trend) resulted in a housing shortage in the United States. Workers’ labor is in high demand, and earnings are rising, ensuring that housing remains cheap even as home prices rise. Migration enabled by remote work is also offering opportunities.
The global trend toward e-commerce will demand additional warehouses, storage, and logistics in the industrial sector. The need for further investment is highlighted by problems in the global supply chain that became apparent in 2021. We’re also seeing an increase in demand for life science research facilities. While we prefer to invest in real estate through private markets, publicly traded real estate investment trusts (REITs) have outperformed other equities sectors during periods of rising inflation. In a nutshell, real estate is our favourite option to invest in a higher-inflation climate.
Rely on equities, especially cyclical ones, to drive capital appreciation.
While economists dispute the complexities of inflation, the fundamental principles underlying the current phase appear to be clear: Strong demand and economic growth are driving inflation. Because corporate earnings are also good in inflationary settings, equities tend to do well. We anticipate that stocks of companies that are more closely linked to economic activity and interest rates will likely outperform. Bank stock valuations, for example, have generally been linked to inflation forecasts. In cyclical industries like industrials and commodities, companies with pricing power could see strong revenue increases. Stocks that do well when growth and inflation are rare (think the digital economy) may, on the other hand, be at more risk. In our opinion, you should maintain a fair balance between the two categories, and expect a hard environment for fixed income portfolios as interest rates climb.
Avoid excess cash, and consider borrowing.
In our Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions, 80 percent of the assets we consider have a higher predicted return than inflation. Investing surplus cash in a portfolio that meets your goals and time horizon is the simplest approach to protect purchasing power. Borrowing may be prudent in the current situation. Interest rates remain low, particularly when compared to inflation. A mortgage is a straightforward approach to profit from a healthy home market. If the Federal Reserve reacts to rising inflation by boosting interest rates, borrowing expenses may become less appealing.
Key takeaways
Higher inflation is likely to persist through 2022, but it does not have to be a reason for alarm. Investors can create a portfolio that considers inflation risks and attempts to manage them. While excess cash appears unappealing, relying on equities rather than fixed income and focusing on cyclical sectors and real estate could prove to be profitable strategies. Meanwhile, while policy interest rates are still low, borrowing and settling existing liabilities may be prudent.
In the context of your individual circumstances and aspirations, your J.P. Morgan team can provide you with more information on how the present environment is influencing risk and return possibilities.
What exactly are inflation hedges?
- Inflation hedges are investments that safeguard investors from the depreciation of their money as a result of inflation.
- During inflationary cycles, the investments are expected to preserve or increase in value.
- Inflation hedging is a strategy used by investors to maintain the value of their investments while keeping operating costs low.