It's a good investment at the right time. Most of the time it's a place to live. If you're over leveraged it could be bad. Of course it depends. But the potent

It's a good investment at the right time. Most of the time it's a place to live. If you're over leveraged it could be bad. Of course it depends. But the potential rate of return can be pretty astounding. Anecdotally, I bought a modest house in Seattle a long time ago, when you could do zero down payments so I just paid some closing costs, etc. I rented out rooms to friends to cover most of the mortgage. I was making less than 6 figures at the time. After 3 years, I sold it. After commissions, etc the return on investment was 12x. And it was tax free. If I'd kept it another 10 years until the current boom, apparently the ROI would have been closer to 40x. Not many other investment vehicles can offer that. Of course I moved to the bay area and didn't immediately buy a new house so I'm totally screwed now, along with everyone else.