Real Estate Just Won Gallup's Best Investment Poll for the 14th Year in a Row

what did americans say was the best investment in 2026?

Real estate came out on top again, and it wasn't close. Here's how the answers broke down.

Real estate: 38 percent
Stocks and mutual funds: 20 percent
Gold: 18 percent
Savings accounts and CDs: 12 percent
Bonds: 4 percent
Cryptocurrency: 2 percent

Real estate's lead is nearly double the next closest answer. Stocks moved up a bit from last year. Gold cooled off from where it was a few years back. Crypto, despite all the attention it gets, still can't crack 3 percent when people are asked where they'd actually put their money for the long haul.

Yes, twice, and both times it came right back. Fourteen years is a long time for anything to hold first place, so it's worth being straight about when it slipped.

During the financial crisis, savings accounts and CDs edged out real estate for two stretches, once in September 2008 and again in April 2009. Then gold took over for two years running, in 2011 and 2012, while people were still spooked from the crash.

Both times, real estate reclaimed the lead within a year or two and hasn't given it up since 2013. That's the part I think gets lost when people ask if this is still true. It's not that real estate never wavers. It's that it recovers faster than the alternative people ran to.

how does real estate actually compare to stocks over time?

Stocks have produced higher returns over the long run, but with a lot more turbulence along the way, and that turbulence is the part people underestimate. From 1990 to April 2024, the S&P 500 gained roughly 1,325 percent, while a national home price index rose about 308 percent over the same stretch.

On paper, stocks win that math. In practice, most people don't experience a market that way. A home doesn't swing 20 percent in a bad quarter. It's not something you check on your phone during a rough week. Even through the 2008 downturn, real estate showed resilience that a lot of other asset classes didn't.

Home price growth by decade backs this up. Every decade going back to the 1990s has posted 30 percent or higher growth, including the 2000s, which is the decade most people assume was a wash for real estate.

has real estate ever lost the top spot in this poll?

what does a 14-year streak tell buyers in peachtree city?

It tells you that people keep choosing real estate because it's something they can actually use while it builds value, not just something they own on paper. That's the piece I come back to with almost every client I sit down with in Peachtree City.

A home is where someone raises their kids, builds a routine, and slowly builds equity at the same time. It's not a ticker symbol. When I'm talking through a purchase with a buyer in Fayette County or Coweta County, the return on investment matters, but it's rarely the only reason they're doing it.

That said, I'll be direct about this part too. Real estate is a long-term play. If you know you're moving again in two or three years, this same math doesn't apply the same way, and I'll tell you that plainly if that's your situation.

The bottom line

Fourteen out of the last fifteen years, Americans have said real estate is the better bet for the long haul, and the data behind that isn't just sentiment. What I'd tell anyone weighing this decision in South Atlanta right now is the same thing I tell my clients. This only works if you're playing the long game. If you are, the last fourteen years, and honestly the last three decades, make a pretty strong case.

There's no universal answer here. Where you put your money depends on your goals, your timeline, and how much risk you're comfortable carrying, and that's a conversation worth having with a financial advisor alongside whatever real estate decision you're making.