According to my information and research, Indiana real estate (and the whole area around it) appreciation tends to lag inflation and as such underperforms as an appreciating asset. However, the area does cash flow well.
In terms of the stock market, Indiana real estate performs like a bond fund. Slow, and sometimes lags inflation.
HLS does have a point. In terms of real estate, why plop down your entire money lump into one property, when you can diversify and put it over several properties? It also makes sense from a tax standpoint because you can probably decrease your taxes more with several properties (using depreciation) than one.
All I can say is to do the hard math and see which performs better.
