Source: Gallup's Economy and Personal Finance Poll

• According to results from Gallup's annual Economy and Personal Finance poll, conducted April 6-9, 2009, real estate as the best long-term investment has risen to 33% after dipping to a low of 26% last September.
• Housing still ranks well below where it did during the real-estate boom years -- in 2002, 50% of Americans said housing was the best long-term investment.
• Similarly, stocks have lost some of their luster in recent years. In the 2007 Economy and Finance survey, 31% of Americans chose stocks as the best long-term investment. But that percentage has declined in each of the three polls since then, and has hit a new low of just 15%. Since the poll was conducted, stocks have recovered some of their lost value, but this remains much lower than before the financial crisis took hold.
• Bonds -- like savings accounts -- tended to perform better than most other investments in the past year, but Americans' perceptions of bonds as the best long-term investment have varied little in response to economic conditions, ranging between 10% and 13% since 2002.