Your home is a durable consumer good. You spend (lots) of money maintaining it and paying insurance, because it's in a constant state of decay. Your home isn't

Your home is a durable consumer good. You spend (lots) of money maintaining it and paying insurance, because it's in a constant state of decay. Your home isn't paying you anything, quite the opposite. Maybe someone will come along later and pay you more than what you've spent on it. Maybe not. On average you're likely to get back what you paid plus inflation. It's a speculative investment at best. Now, owning a home where someone else is paying you to live there? That's an investment.