I see it a bit differently. A house provides a basic human necessity (shelter) and can be insured. It stands to reason that it can be mostly financed with very

I see it a bit differently. A house provides a basic human necessity (shelter) and can be insured. It stands to reason that it can be mostly financed with very long-term, cheap, debt capital. Other than mass-scale depopulation, not much will cause a house to dramatically lose value, especially to a first-lien lender. Stocks are a different animal. Even assuming a company performs well, which it may or may not, there are all sorts of crazy things -- trade tensions, interest rates, valuation changes, investor sentiment for/against various sectors, completely leaving aside rational changes in value due to company performance -- which cause price swings far detached from company fundamentals. US equity markets went up ~30% in the past year. They could fall as well. If anything like this happened in housing, you'd literally get riots in the streets. I don't think it's an accident that the financial system provides so much credit for housing. Yes, it should probably be a little more expensive (thank Fannie and Freddie for that) and yes, maybe we could use a little more equity, 20%, or 30%. But suggesting houses should be 100% equity-financed like most stock purchases? Doesn't make sense.