The Stock Market vs. Real Estate: How They Have Performed Over the Last 30 Years
One of the keys to successful investing is diversifying your portfolio to include a mix of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, savings accounts, real estate and other assets.
Read More: 12 Best Safe Investments To Grow Your Money in 2025
Explore More: These 10 Used Cars Will Last Longer Than an Average New Vehicle
But what if you had to choose between individual asset classes, such as stocks or real estate?
Also see the easiest and hardest ways to invest in real estate .
Stocks or Real Estate?
If you’re legendary investor Warren Buffett , you choose stocks. That’s what the Oracle of Omaha said during a recent shareholder meeting at Berkshire Hathaway, CNBC reported.
Buffett, who plans to step down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO at the end of the year, was asked during the meeting why he continues to buy stocks instead of more real estate property.
Advertisement: High Yield Savings Offers
“There’s just so much more opportunity, at least in the United States, that presents itself in the security market than in real estate,” Buffett said.
That might come as a surprise to real estate investors who have seen home values more than double over the past decade or so, per Construction Coverage — until they realize that stock values have performed even better.
In fact, over the past 30 years, stock market returns have far outpaced real estate returns — and it’s not even close. This is certainly true of residential real estate. It’s also likely the case for commercial real estate.
Following is a look at returns for various indexes over the past three decades.
Check Out: How To Turn $100K Into a Million: Your Step-by-Step Guide
S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index
This index measures residential real estate values in the United States and is tracked by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Its latest data goes through March 2025. Here is how the index has grown since March 1995.
S&P 500
The S&P 500 is considered a bellwether of the stock markets and is used as a key gauge of the country’s overall economic and market health. Here’s how it has grown over the past 30 years.
Dow Jones Industrial Average
The Dow is another key indicator of overall stock market health. Here’s its performance over the past three decades.
Nasdaq Composite
The tech-heavy Nasdaq saw its value skyrocket during the 1990s with the global rise of personal computers, microchips and the internet. Since then, values have continued to soar amid an explosion in everything from e-commerce and social media to artificial intelligence and electric vehicles. Here’s how the Nasdaq has performed over the past 30 years.