Owning raw realestate requres management, like any other business. but there are REIT. I'd much, much rather have 5 million in a vanguard REIT than Seattle/SF realestate...
Before the stock market took a knock over the past two years, people were talking the same way about index funds as they were talking about property. The same thing with bitcoin really.
It's not that real estate is safe per se.
Index funds usually recover to before-crisis levels in about 5 years, so they're not terribly risky in that sense.
The Bitcoin believers were always lunatics. That people will believe in stupid shit is nothing new.
http://www.finra.org/investors/dangerous-game-using-your-por...