The truth is that homes deliver enormous non‑financial value — stability, community, belonging. Those are reasons to buy. But as financial assets, they come with structural constraints: They are expensive to maintain, difficult to trade, impossible to diversify, and usually purchased with significant leverage. The investment component is real but volatile, and its return path can be long and uneven. For home buyers now facing losses, this is not an individualized failure. It is the predictable outcome of society promoting an undiversified, illiquid, highly leveraged asset as if it were the ultimate life goal.
I generally agree, a home should not be primarily thought of as an investment.
It’s a roof over your head that you have more control over than if you were living in a rental.
And after a period of time, you actually own it and no longer have to keep paying someone else for the privilege of having a place to live.
Minor nitpick, most places (US-specific) have property taxes you have to pay every year, so even if you own your own home, you’re paying something to someone every year for the right to have a roof over your head.
You’re also (indirectly) paying those same taxes if you are renting, so it’s not really a deciding factor in favour of either housing option.
I’m not arguing either way with that, just pointing out that our current system (in most of the US at least) demands that you pay someone to live no matter how you do it
Well, yeah, but the amount you’re paying goes down dramatically after some time if you’re buyer compared to renting.