>Leverage is only an advantage if your return is higher than your cost of borrowing. Which it is for housing, and many other investments. Only the bank won't

>Leverage is only an advantage if your return is higher than your cost of borrowing. Which it is for housing, and many other investments. Only the bank won't lend you $500,000, backed by the government, to buy stocks. My qualm with the OP was the implication that real-estate has outsized returns. Unless you're taking advantage of a home mortgage, there's nothing significant about real-estate returns. Of course most of us here are of the generation that saw nothing but rising house price (except for that one time where they didn't, but that's an anomaly, right?)