> Assuming my portfolio does the same as the worst 25 years of the S&P 500, it will still beat buying a house I'm interested in the analysis here. This is a th

> Assuming my portfolio does the same as the worst 25 years of the S&P 500, it will still beat buying a house I'm interested in the analysis here. This is a thought I'd considered and when I ran the numbers they were about the equal. You're buying a house on margin with just 20% down. With 3% appreciation your house has appreciated 80% in 20 years. You're earning 400% roi. For the portfolio, if you're averaging 8% you're returning 466%. So the portfolio still wins, right? But no so fast: you don't owe a dime of taxes on that $80k appreciation. Anyway, your argument was beyond just ROI, but i'm interested if you have any thoughts about that?