One goal that you might have for yourself is to build your net worth, which can help you create a comfortable financial future.
And one common way to help build your worth is through various appreciating assets, that over time can grow substantially in value.
What’s awesome about some of the appreciating assets examples I’ll cover below, is that some will not require much effort on your part. Instead, the power of time and what the financial markets are doing can create a big net worth for you.
Of course, there is no guarantee with any asset you invest or purchase that it will significantly grow in the future.
No one can accurately predict what the future will hold, but these assets have a good chance of helping you build wealth.
Net Worth Definition
Your net worth is the value of all the non-financial and financial assets that you currently own minus the value of any of your current outstanding liabilities. The more appreciating assets and the less debt you have, the quicker you can grow your overall net worth.
A simple way to monitor your net worth, investments, and budget is with a free tool like Personal Capital.
Appreciating Asset Definition
When you own appreciating assets, these are assets that tend to go up in price over time. These assets are designed to increase your net worth and diversify your portfolio. However, there is no guarantee that appreciation in price will happen, as there will be times these assets can lose value.
Appreciating Assets To Build Your Net Worth
A key area to build wealth and not just temporary riches is with appreciating assets. In order to take your finances to the next level, investing will be a critical aspect of your goals.
So what are some of the best appreciating assets you must consider for your own investment portfolio?
There are quite a few assets that might interest you and others that you may want to stay away from. What you invest in is your own choice based on money goals.
List of appreciating assets:
- Real estate
- Real estate investment trust (REIT)
- Stocks
- Bonds
- Private Equity
- Certificates of Deposit (CDs)
- Savings Accounts
- Commodities
- Collectibles
- Starting A Business
I’ll cover each of these a bit more in-depth below!
1. Real Estate
Probably one of the most common appreciating assets many have built wealth with is investing in real estate. This can be in the form of single-family homes, multi-family homes, commercial real estate like office buildings, and even land or farmland.
Typically, this will mean investing for the long-haul and make these properties rentals or even listed on sites like Airbnb. But you could also purchase homes that you rehab and flip for profit as well.
However, the goal for real estate to be an appreciating asset is to hold on long-term, so that years later the value has jumped significantly.
While real estate tends to appreciate over time, there is still plenty of risks involved. In 2008 there was a housing bubble that caused some intense depreciation and lots of foreclosures in the real estate market.
The market did recover, but don’t think your real estate investments are 100% full proof.
2. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
With traditional real estate, it can require some serious knowledge, money, time, and effort on your part to be successful. That statement is not to scare you away, but it might be something you aren’t ready to dabble in quite yet.
However, you can still get exposure to real estate through something called Real Estate Investment Trusts or commonly shortened as REITs.
A REIT is just a pool of money that is used to purchase and even sell real estate properties. These income-producing trusts provide the investor with a steady stream of dividends typically from commercial real estate and apartment buildings.
The main benefit of investing in REITs is you get to invest in large commercial properties, without taking on as much financial risk if you were to invest in the physical real estate yourself.
You can invest in REITs via the stock market like Vanguard’s VNQ ETF or their VGSLX index fund. Or you can look to real estate crowdfunding platforms like Fundrise, DiversyFund, or Groundfloor.
3. Stocks
When it comes to appreciating assets, I naturally have to include investing in stocks. When you invest in stocks, you take part in the ownership of a company in order to generate dividends and to increase your share price over time.
And pending the company, you might even get voting rights on company initiatives and other decisions as a stockholder. Kind of cool, right?
The challenge with investing in stocks is no one can accurately predict exactly what companies will be winners and how much they will grow (if they grow at all!).
Certainly, there are plenty of predictions and some people can pick quality companies, but even then it’s still impossible to know how much that a particular stock will grow.
Instead of day trading or trying to pick individual stock winners, most smart investors will look into ETFs or index funds that diversify your exposure to multiple companies at once.
This lowers your risk and gives you a piece of hundreds and even thousands of companies! I prefer Vanguard Index Funds, but there are plenty of choices for you to consider.
You can choose to invest in some individual stocks, but you should ensure it’s a smaller portion of your portfolio and always do your research. If investing individual stocks interests you, consider using Morningstar or The Motley Fool to help guide your decisions.
4. Bonds
When you invest in stocks, inevitably you’ll come across bonds too. Now whether you choose to invest in bonds or not is a personal choice and if you prefer to risk less money.
Bonds can be good slower appreciating assets to help balance your portfolio against the higher risk of stocks.
So what is a bond?
A bond is a form of debt that you can purchase as mutual funds or even privately in the form of a loan to a company or the government. As the investor, you’ll receive interest on your loan. Additionally, bonds usually have a set maturity date, which can typically range from one to ten years in the future. Once that date is hit, the bond is repaid in full.
There are many types of bonds out there, which we won’t go in-depth here. But some include corporate bonds, municipal bonds, and Treasury Bonds.
5. Private Equity
Private equity is simply when you invest and take an ownership stake in a private business, like a start-up. The end goal will be to receive part of the profits and potentially be paid a percent lump sum if the business is ever sold.
Typically, this will require you to be an accredited investor or venture capitalist, as private equity will require a fairly large amount of capital.
There are also sites that have the crowdfunding aspect so you can get in on the action like Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, and AngelList.
Out of this list of appreciating assets, I see private equity as one of the riskiest to attempt.
While investing in your own business can be a great idea, investing in other businesses and start-ups is not easy. And as mentioned, it can require much larger amounts of capital with no guarantee of appreciation.
However, if you are business savvy, have the capital, and maybe have a bit of luck on your side — private equity can provide massive returns in the future and build your net worth significantly.
6. Certificates of Deposits (CDs)
Another example of an appreciating asset that might be interesting to you is certificates of deposits or CDs as they often abbreviated.
These are similar to bonds in a way, as it is low-risk and has much less risk of loss compared to stocks or real estate. However, you can also expect lower returns.
CDs can typically be purchased through your bank or an online-only bank you might be interested in. Any CD you put money in should be FDIC insured up to $250,000. This is extra protection for you in the bank where if the bank was to ever go completely under, you’d be able to recoup your money up to a quarter-million dollars.
Here’s how a CD works: you deposit money into a bank for a fixed period of time (usually called a term), and the bank will pay a fixed interest rate until the term is up. Once the maturity date is hit, you get the money back you deposited along with the interest accrued.
CDs also come in varying term lengths and may require different minimum balances. But usually, the longer the term of the CD and the more money you deposit, the higher the rate you will be offered.
Not too shabby, right?
Some investors looking to diversify CDs and lower risk further might do something called a CD Ladder.
There are risks with CDs too. For example, a CD will perform better when interest rates are already pretty high. The reason is, CDs become less valuable when inflation rates rise.
7. Savings Accounts
Generally, if you are using a bank then you probably have and utilize a savings account. And you might be slightly surprised to see this on the list.
Regardless if your interest rates are low on your savings account currently, it is technically an appreciating asset.
Your savings account is one of the safest appreciating assets for your money. The challenge is many banks are offering fractions of percents when it comes to interest rates. The means they are not keeping up with the rate of inflation!
However, you can look at high-yield savings accounts which usually you can find in the 1-3% interest range. But if the economy is struggling, you may see those percentages dip on banks and eventually rise again.
Personally, I view savings accounts as the place for your emergency fund and extra for living expenses to hedge unexpected bills, job loss, or any other “life happens” event.
I don’t think much of a savings account as my appreciating asset, but it certainly can be for you.
8. Commodities
Another investment that might not get as much spotlight compared to others on this list, but are just as important is commodities.
It’s a pretty broad category, but besides being filled with appreciating assets can be a good diversification tool for your portfolio.
A commodity is items like grains, silver, gold, beef, oil, and natural gas. These items are also risky to invest in as there will be ups and downs in the pricing. However, over time these have substantial potential in being strong appreciating assets.
For most investors, there are a few ways to invest in commodities. Some brokerage companies offer various commodities ETFs, varying in all sorts of sub-categories. However, not all brokerages offer these types of funds, so you’ll need to look at your current financial company if they have any.
You can also invest in individual company stocks that fit the commodity category. Others will choose to own commodities directly, like those who buy gold, silver, or platinum bullions or coins.
9. Collectors Items
Collector’s items can be a massive appreciating asset if you know what to look for and what to invest in at the right time.
Out of this list, investing in collector’s items might be one of the more challenging assets to put your money into. But, the value in the future has serious potential to net you big money.
There is a wide range of categories for collector’s items but here are some of the common ones that can be good investments.
Classic and vintage cars
While cars are typically depreciating assets, if you know what to look for and what is in-demand, classic cars can net a nice profit for you. There are many factors that affect prices like the overall supply, demand, brand, age, and condition.
Fine art
Finding art to invest in can not only be expensive if it’s a well-known artist but speculative when it is a new artist. It’s hard to predict if any new artists will take off in the future and you may need a large capital to get a piece of famous art.
However, Masterworks is an option where you can buy shares of art from Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Andy Warhol, and other famous art the company may purchase.
Wine
People love wine, but it can also be an appreciating asset. It’s not easy to know which wine and where the value will go as here are TONs of factors.
But you can physically invest in wine or you can look into another platform that makes it easier called Vinovest. You can invest in a custom wine portfolio of bottles chosen by experts, which physically store it for you.
Other
There are tons more items that fall into this category like coins, stamps, sports trading cards, etc. And while owning physical collector’s items is popular, the financial tech world continues to make investing easier.
There are other platforms like RallyRD and Mythic Markets to invest in various collectibles
10. Starting A Business
Starting your own business can be time-consuming, stressful, and require a bit of upfront capital — and can still fail even with great execution.
However, starting a business can also create FU money, build your net worth, and become a massive appreciating asset in the future.
And there are tons of businesses you can start, especially online that have less initial expenses but can build your income substantially.
Naturally not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and that’s okay, but think about many millionaires and billionaires who did not come from generational wealth.
Many become wealthy through their own company results or selling their business years later. Of course, multiple streams of income is where strong wealth accumulation will happen, but starting a business can be a strong asset.
For example, this website is my official side business that I work on a few hours a week. With less than $1,500 to get it started, the site is now generating 14x+ in revenue per year of the start-up costs.
And I could sell the site for a healthy sum, even though it’s just over two years old. Plus, I get to write about something I’m passionate about and hopefully help others!
What appreciating assets are you interested in or investing in currently? Are there others that you have found success with? Let me know in the comments below.