Rental yield and capital gains are trade offs. Properties with higher rental yields tend to have lower capital gains, and vice versa. I have one commercial with rental yield 8% p.a. but hardly any capital gains.
However, between the two, capital gains almost always beats rental yield. This is because "capital gains" are for "deep pockets" and "deep pockets" almost always wins "shallow pockets".
Landed properties are super-long term plays so you must practise PROPERTISM.
PROPERTISM Rule No. 1 - Property prices always go up in the long term hence properties should only be bought and not sold.
I personally know many high-earning professionals are hoarding up landed properties for their children.
The future will be divided between the children of those who have landed properties and those who do not. Landed properties cannot be created.
The only risk is if PAP loses power and some crazy new government confiscate our properties like in China's Cultural Revolution. Otherwise this is a sure-win thing for the children.
Holding landed properties is like holding paintings. When you look at it, you must look into the future ... a distant future ... you are no longer in this world. It's like a religion. That's why I do not buy 99 year LH landed properties. I cannot see the future.
There is one religion more powerful than PROPERTISM. It's called PAINTISM. I don't have deep enough pockets to play this one. Negative rental yields. Need storage costs and insurance.
Picasso Nude Fetches Record US$106.5 Million in N.Y.
By Lindsay Pollock and Philip Boroff - May 5, 2010
Pablo Picasso’s 1932 lilac-hued oil painting of his young mistress, Marie-Therese Walter, sold for a record US$106.5 million in New York last night, hours after the U.S. stock market had its biggest drop since February.
“Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” came from the estate of Los Angeles philanthropist Frances Brody, who died last year at the age of 93. She bought it in 1950 for US$17,000 at New York’s Paul Rosenberg and Co., according to Conor Jordan, head of Christie’s Impressionist and modern art department in New York.