You don't always get to enjoy the value of the place you own, though. Let's say you buy a house with the intent to live there the rest of your life, and you ma

You don't always get to enjoy the value of the place you own, though. Let's say you buy a house with the intent to live there the rest of your life, and you make good on that. You pay mortgage every month for X years, then you continue paying property tax. You never see a dime back. Let's say you buy a house and then a few years later you take a job out of state, so you sell your house and buy a new one. Most of the money you made by selling your old house goes towards paying the rest of your mortgage, and most of the rest goes into the down payment of your new house. And if your property values plummeted since you bought it (e.g. thanks to an economic crash or a natural disaster), you may very well end up still owing money on your mortgage even after you sell the house. If you actually want to keep your money, then your best hope is to wait until your mortgage is paid off, sell your house, then move into a house that's worth much less than your old one, and pocket the difference. But that takes decades; my mom had a 30-year mortgage on her house! She didn't get to stop making mortgage payments until she was 60! > pay a bit more for quality stuff that doesn't break. I live in Texas. Air conditioners here break down constantly because of the summer heat. When you have consecutive weeks of 100°F+ temps, that puts a lot of strain on the AC.