Totally agree with: > If you want to buy a house to live in, I suggest you view it as a consumption good and not an investment. Your money will almost certainly

Totally agree with: > If you want to buy a house to live in, I suggest you view it as a consumption good and not an investment. Your money will almost certainly do better in equities. I bought a house in 2007 in Los Angeles. It dropped like a rock. Then it came back. It will never be a great investment. But guess what? We lived in it and it is cheaper than renting. That is the true benefit of a mortgage (particularly in CA where they limit how fast they can raise property taxes): you can lock in your housing cost for a long time. That is a great value for a family.