Those things are also true here! A "home equity line of credit" or HELOC is very common, especially when interest rates are incredibly low, as they were before

Those things are also true here! A "home equity line of credit" or HELOC is very common, especially when interest rates are incredibly low, as they were before last year. Also, most people understand that other than some edge cases like 2008, homes rise in value over time, consistently and dramatically. Most people know of situations where a retired couple bought a house for less than $100k many years ago, and now it's worth five to ten to twenty times that much! That's about where most people stop thinking. Clearly house values go up, I don't want to end up 30 years from now having paid rent and having nothing to show for it, I'm gonna buy a house. There's even one more factor, which is the US federal tax structure gives you a big break on any interest you pay on a home mortgage, so many people think: I get a tax break on my house payment, but not on rent. Of course, most people don't put together a spreadsheet to consider how much money that old couple might have had if they had put that $100k into a stock market index fund the same year they bought the house. Please understand, I'm not saying that buying a house is a bad investment. I'm just saying it's usually not the best investment. I don't think most people over-value buying a home, I think they under-value putting a home-sized chunk of money into an S&P index fund!