I bought a house in Q3 2012 because I thought I was settling down in the area, and then ended up moving away 18 months later after unexpectedly getting a Google

I bought a house in Q3 2012 because I thought I was settling down in the area, and then ended up moving away 18 months later after unexpectedly getting a Google job offer that was too good to pass up then and in hindsight now after promotions and raises was unbelievably too good to have passed up. I still own that house and rent it out through a rental agency, but that's definitely not the best return on investment on that money (it's not the kind of property you would've bought if your goal was to maximize return on investment). I would own a home again some day just because there's things you can do with a property you own that you can't do when you rent, but I definitely wouldn't be approaching it as if it were an investment like I did in 2012. I'd be financially better off (admittedly to an insignificant degree) had I not bought that house, and I certainly put a lot more of my time and effort into it in those 18 months than I would have if I'd continued renting.