Why should we invest in real estate when there are so many other options?

[Michael Seeker]

...perhaps this will compel/motivate you to stick with REI.

I was a bit bored today and decided to see how the richest people in the world made their money. Not surprisingly, real estate is the most common answer. This data is compiled from the top 300 people on Forbes list. Almost 10% have real estate as the main source of their wealth, though I'd bet that "investments" and "diversified" probably involve REI to some extent as well.

Sector and number of people who have this listed as their source of wealth:

real estate - 26

energy - 19

investments - 19

diversified - 18

retail - 16

metals - 14

media - 10

banking - 10

hedge funds - 6

beer - 6

Sector and sum of the net worth from that sector in billions

diversified - 250.2

energy - 198.7

real estate - 197.4

investments - 174.7

metals - 169.3

retail - 129.7

Wal-Mart - 111.8

telecom - 91.7

media - 85.6

banking - 83.7