Yesterday I sold the last shares I had of “Mattone Arancio”. “Mattone Arancio” is the ING Direct’s investment fund dedicated to european real esate, targeted to consumers and very small investors, that is accessible for Conto Arancio (saving account) owners.
Why did I sold everything? Well, I believe that in the long run real estate will continue to growth in value: the simple reasoning is that population is increasing — and therefore the demand for houses, offices, stores — but the space available to build cannot increase at the same rate. Although this, in my opinion in the short term the prospects are not very rosy. The simple fact that people is talking more and more of the “housing bubble explosion” means that fewer investor will put money in the real estate-connected funds. What is likely to happen is that someone may think we have reached the maximum, and given that now there are a lot less investors eager to buy “real estate”, the price may drop sharply (for funds that have seen a 150% growth in the last three years, a 20% or 30% fall is nothing). To be very optimistic, one may just think that prices will rise less than before, but even if this would be right, the game is no more worth the candle: too much risk for a small benefit.
From a certain point of view, I’m sorry to have leaved this investment fund, since I was… let’s say “affectionate” to it. This is because Mattone Arancio has no cost or fees for buying or selling shares, and this allowed me to do some “experiments”, which allowed me to learn a few things. In the future I will tell you more details…. that may be useful to understand what you should not do in investing your money :-)
Italian translation of this post: Mattone Arancio
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