If you’re looking to answer the question, “Is real estate a good investment?” look no further. Because the question is actually one that only you can answer.

But, no surprise, the answer is not a simple yes or no - but it’s also not that complicated. Whether real estate is a good investment can be boiled down to these essentials: Real estate is a good investment for anyone who has the right strategy, supported by the right market conditions and can conservatively estimate a positive return on investment. If that still leaves you wondering “Is real estate a good Investment,” let me explain…

Let’s start with strategy, because no matter what strategy you go with, the options will depend a lot on market conditions, as well as your individual situation. There are four basic approaches to real estate investment strategy. Investors really do have access to many ways to create short- and long-term wealth, but these are smart ways for individual investors to begin building a real estate portfolio and any of them could be a good investment.

Buy and Hold: If market conditions are improving or will continue to improve over the next few years, you might want to consider buying and holding a real estate property investment. The buy and hold has been around pretty much forever, and some of the richest people in history have made a good real estate investment using this strategy. Just what it sounds like, you buy for the long-term, selling only at a much later date. While you own the home, you can opt to rent it out to tenants, making it a good real estate investment for immediate cash flow.

Naturally, like any investment, there are some pitfalls you’ll want to avoid and I cover them in my article, Top 10 “Gotchas” for Buy and Hold Properties. Consider them carefully before you decide that real estate is a good investment. As I mentioned, there are essentially four strategies to a good real estate investment. The second one I’ll mention here is:

House Flipping: Unlike the “buy & hold,” the house flip is a quick purchase, rehab and sell strategy, with return on investment (profit) coming from either buying low and selling high (possible in a rapidly rising market), or buying a house that needs repair and fixing it up to resell it for a profit ("fix and flip”).

Popular TV shows make it seem practically guaranteed that you can profit from this strategy, but don’t be misled - learn to avoid The Top 10 Mistakes Made by House Flippers before you decide that this real estate investment strategy is a good one for you.

No matter what strategy you choose, a few more words of advice:

Make sure you can measure return. Be careful to quantify the rates of return on the money invested in a property and compare it to your goals, to other properties, and to alternative investment vehicles like the stock market. There’s lots more to cover here, and it’s fundamental to answering the question “Is real estate a good investment?” - no matter who’s asking! Click here to get a free, quick, step by step lesson on calculating return on investment.

Hand-on or Hands-off? Once you’ve decided that real estate is a good investment, and you’re ready to make the move and jump in, you need to decide how involved you can and want to be. Are you able to be hands-on owner, or passive? Or somewhere in between?

You market timing and know-how, doing the due diligence and carefully choosing the teams you work with are truly going to define whether real estate is a good investment for you. My final word of advice: Take advantage of lessons learned the hard way by other investors and learn everything you can, step by step. A great place to start is HowManyDoors’ Real Estate Basics to find out why I think real estate is a good investment.