I think gold prices are impacted by its industrial use as well. So when that component drops, prices goes down. Another component of gold investment is to compensate for inflation which is also down except in real estate. Yet another component of gold investment is to hedge against short term loss in stock markets which was also down because of tremendous gains in S&P. The real estate is a different beast: There is no industrial component and no short term hedges. Also unlike gold, real estate can generate passive returns in form of rents.

Gold is the instrument of choice for growth investor with inflation fears (i.e. it's rumored to hold its value when inflation speeds up). It is not free to own in large quantities, as one must incur additional storage and security costs.

Real estate is the instrument of choice for income investor with inflation fears (i.e. if all goes bad, you can still rent it out, and that rent will still bring something). Through successful lobbying it's relatively cheap to own if you buy in a state with low property taxes.

There's a gold etf that's easy to own.

Yeah, I guess I skipped over the fact that a home has property taxes and insurance/maintenance costs that would add up.

I think the key is the optionality of real estate for income purposes. In a down market real estate can still generate some monthly cashflow, the only way one could do it with gold ETF is lend out the shares to short-sellers.