Your stock portfolio isn't intrinsically useful. A house is intrinsically useful, even if you rent it out: you can do an owner-move-in, and you secured your abi

Your stock portfolio isn't intrinsically useful. A house is intrinsically useful, even if you rent it out: you can do an owner-move-in, and you secured your ability to live somewhere. If the stock market crash, you can't do anything useful with your stock portfolio. If the housing market crash, you can do something useful with the house: live in it. I don't argue that you can rent with the yield of your portfolio. I'm just saying that when the music stops, a house is useful and a portfolio of stock isn't. So to me, owning a house is worth it over having a souped up stock portfolio. And if you rent out your house, even if in a high CoL area like the SF Bay area, the long term yield can be comparable to a stock portfolio. And during that time, you have an anchor in one of the most economically productive area of the world.