“I don’t believe in real estate…”

A friend/client of mine said to me recently: “I don’t believe in real estate, but I do believe in fixed-rate debt.” I keep thinking of it, in part due to the shock value of the first part of the statement, but also because he has found a way to amass what I consider to be an impressive net financial worth, so his opinions seem worth considering.

Of course, as he elaborate in further discussion, what he meant was: “I don’t believe that prices are necessarily ‘at bottom,’” and “I believe that the debt that I can acquire today is relatively “cheap” when compared to historic rates. He acknowledged that rates can still go down, but also that they can – and likely will, at some point – go up.

Here’s an article from October that opines there is “no rush” to lock in rates: http://www.inman.com/news/2011/10/6/no-rush-lock-in-record-low-mortgage-rates

Your thoughts?