> You'd have to invest the savings and get way higher than inflation returns to break even.
You say that like it's a difficult thing to do.
S&P500 is up 710% since 1996. Gold is up 92% since 2012.
Personally, the rent control is the best part of a mortgage and even though renting is typically better, I'm fine paying a premium for that. That said, good luck getting somebody to loan you 900k so you can play the stock market; it's much easier to get that for a house though.
And housing is up 125% since 2012, so the sucker who bought gold instead of a house has lost out.
We can all be rich in hindsight.
(There's also other benefits to owning - like being able to have pets, not being able to be evicted, etc)
But the biggest tell that housing is valuable is that nobody is spending $500k on housing to rent it out if they could make more money pumping $500k into the stock market.
> But the biggest tell that housing is valuable is that nobody is spending $500k on housing to rent it out if they could make more money pumping $500k into the stock market.
Of course they are. I do. I do so knowing full well that my expected returns are going to be nowhere near my brokerage account invested in public equities. The past decade has followed that expectation.
I and many others do it as a form of diversification. It’s risk aversion in the end. Most people with capital don’t want to be putting all their eggs into one basket, so for wealth preservation and diversified income streams it’s a good option even knowing up front you are expected to lose money via opportunity cost.
That ignores other benefits of housing being a privileged investment category by the current government and monetary/tax policy. If you seek cheap leverage this is probably one of your few options as a “two bit” player in the market at that $500k level.
If you put around 200-300k into IBKR (not affiliated) you can get portfolio margin which will give you just shy of $2,000,000 in buying power. Access to leverage isn’t really an issue, but forced liquidation definitely is. The bank will not liquidate your mortgage if you end up underwater.
You say that like it's a difficult thing to do.
S&P500 is up 710% since 1996. Gold is up 92% since 2012.
Personally, the rent control is the best part of a mortgage and even though renting is typically better, I'm fine paying a premium for that. That said, good luck getting somebody to loan you 900k so you can play the stock market; it's much easier to get that for a house though.