Did You Consider Time?

[Account Closed]

My background was finance and accounting so naturally I'm concerned with ROI.

However, I don't read about anybody factoring in the massive amount of time and energy required. Real estate is labor intensive, especially if not well managed. If the end goal is a decent investment return, you really need to step back and consider time.

The reason I bring this up is because I am always comparing the business of real estate to other investments such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, CDs, etc.

I'm always asking- What is the real rate of return considering monetary investment, time and energy included? What is your time worth?

For example-

For the past 3 years my S&P Index fund returned a net of 11%. My time and energy was nearly zero except for completing some paperwork.

However, the SFR rental returned me 19% based on equity when purchased, cash flow, etc. My time and energy was a significant investment. Such time was spent coordinating contractors, a HVAC professional, roofing claim, quarterly inspection, small repairs, advertising, credit checks, switching utilities, angry neighbor, talking with insurance agent, time with CPA, time with lawyer, researching info, looking for deals, networking, even my time on BP,etc.

Now considering some of these issues are initial purchase activities, still a large amount of time is required to manage the property. So my time used was significant, nearly 150+ hours or almost 3 weeks of 8 hour.

So was my time worth the additional 8%? Maybe.

I am wondering if anyone else considers the above. Perhaps, its only an exercise for an accounting nerd such as myself.

Do investors really consider the amount of time they're investing? Just leasing a property start to finish averages about 20 hours.