Most people think of real estate and stocks as two completely different investment strategies.
And while they do have major differences, one of the most underrated benefits of real estate is something it doesn’t have—real-time price tracking.
If you’ve ever been glued to your brokerage account, watching your stock portfolio bounce up and down, you know how mentally exhausting it can be.
That constant stream of information can create anxiety, overreactions, and bad decisions.
Real estate, on the other hand, forces patience.
Even when the market shifts, you don’t have a big red number flashing in your face, tempting you to sell.
And that’s a good thing.
The Psychological Advantage of Not Seeing Daily Prices
The stock market is an emotional battlefield. Prices move by the second.
Media headlines are designed to trigger fear or FOMO.
And because you can sell instantly, it’s hard not to react—even when you know you probably shouldn’t.
In real estate, your rental properties don’t have tickers.
You don’t wake up to an email saying your duplex dropped 5% overnight.
You don’t have to worry about a “flash crash” wiping out a year’s worth of gains in minutes.
The result? Less stress and fewer bad decisions.
Why Less Data Can Be a Good Thing
We like to think having more data helps us make better decisions.
But the reality? It often leads to overthinking and impulsive moves.
Real estate investors don’t obsess over home values daily because there’s no need to.
As long as your rent checks clear, your mortgage gets paid down, and your tenants aren’t setting the house on fire, your investment is doing just fine.
In stocks, the ability to instantly see (and act on) price changes feeds our worst instincts.
Studies have shown that the more frequently investors check their portfolio, the worse they perform—because they’re more likely to panic-sell at the worst times.
The act of doing this even has a name, myopic loss aversion.
The Impact of Market Volatility on Decision-Making
Let’s talk about what happens when things go wrong.
If stocks drop 10% in a week, investors freak out. Twitter (or X, whatever) is full of people debating whether it’s time to sell everything.
Your brokerage account is begging you to do something.
If home values dip 10%?
Most landlords don’t even notice. The rent still gets paid, the loan balance keeps shrinking, and the tax benefits don’t disappear.
That “out of sight, out of mind” factor prevents emotional decision-making.
And when it comes to long-term investing, avoiding bad decisions is more important than making great ones.
Illiquidity = Forced Patience
Some people think real estate’s lack of liquidity is a negative.
And sure, you can’t just hit a button and sell a house like you can a stock. But that illiquidity is actually a benefit.
You can’t panic-sell if you physically can’t sell.
I learned this firsthand during COVID.
My wife and I were visiting her family in California, and we had already decided we’d move back from Michigan in the next couple of years.
Then the pandemic hit.
The news was doom and gloom—recession, unemployment spikes, the housing market collapsing.
I panicked. I thought we should sell our home ASAP before prices tanked.
But selling a house isn’t instant.
And the time it takes to find a real estate agent, prep and plan for a sale, etc. can provide an invaluable “cooling off period” that allows you to see things clearer.
And sure enough, instead of tanking, prices shot up. We ended up moving back to California on our original timeline and selling for a great price.
Had that house been a stock? I probably would’ve sold it at the exact wrong time.
My $MSTR Position vs. My Rentals
Fast forward to today, and I’m still in the stock market.
One of my biggest positions is Microstrategy ($MSTR), which has taken an absolute beating lately.
Even though I have high conviction in the investment, watching the price get slaughtered in real time is tough.
It makes you question your strategy, even when nothing about the fundamental thesis has changed.
This is why so many people wish they had held onto Apple, Nvidia, or Amazon 20 years ago—but actually doing it through all the market crashes and bear markets is nearly impossible.
Meanwhile, my rental properties?
They’re boring. Rents get paid, loans get paid down, and I don’t think twice about the “value” on any given day.
And yet, over time, they build wealth just the same.
The Takeaway
Both stocks and real estate can be great investments. But one of the biggest advantages of real estate is something missing—a live price ticker.
- With stocks, seeing real-time prices tempts you to make short-term decisions that hurt long-term gains.
- In real estate, you’re forced to focus on the fundamentals—cash flow, loan paydown, appreciation, and tax benefits.
- Illiquidity forces patience. It protects you from your own worst instincts.
So if you’ve been stressing over your stock portfolio lately, take a deep breath and remind yourself the best thing to do is to not panic sell.
Try and treat your stock investments like real estate, and pretend it’s hard to sell.