In all honesty, putting money in real estate or stocks is just speculation which is fairly meaningless - the only benefit that brings is that it drives market f

In all honesty, putting money in real estate or stocks is just speculation which is fairly meaningless - the only benefit that brings is that it drives market forces to evaluate a certain good at a given price, and even still I don't believe it's all too useful today. Further still, putting money into real estate with a hope of ROI is, in my opinion as a home-owner-to-be, actively detrimental to society. Having seen the market prices in my current city rise more than 2x in less than 10 years without the wages seeing anything remotely close to the same adjustment. Just because somebody can make a profit doesn't mean that any intrinsic value has been made.