A housing loan is far less risky than a 5x margin position as they are structurally different types of loans: * The housing loan is non-recourse (you can't los

A housing loan is far less risky than a 5x margin position as they are structurally different types of loans: * The housing loan is non-recourse (you can't lose more than your home), while brokerage is not. * A housing loan's collateral value is only determined at purchase, not hourly. You can't get "margin called" on your house if its value declines. All said, I'll give you that people are oddly leverage-adverse when it comes to brokerages and actually take on more risk (to achieve a given expected return) than they need to if they were willing to use light (10-20%) leverage.