I would actually propose that owning a home is *less* risky than being a life long renter. If you buy a home with a 30 year government supported mortgage market, you know exactly how much you will need to pay every month for the foreseeable future. Plus, if interest rates move against you, you can refinancing at the…

I look white, and I get asked about my ethnicity all the time by people of all races. Presuming that you know something about white people "in general" when you have no basis to make that assumption is racist.

it's the other way around: employers started to lay off employees, then employees started job hopping.

Owning a home gives you options financially, because you have an asset.

try building a skyscraper made of wood and see how far that gets you.

not quite.

Unless the amount of rent you would be paying exceeds all those other costs and the principle payments, you could easily rent and invest the remainder saved into other investments such as stocks

good point about the money being illiquid. However, once you've built up equity you can borrow against it to buy another house. Now you've got an investment in the traditional sense.

If you had bought a house in 14 of the 20 major metropolitan areas tracked by the S&P Case shiller index you would have made money over the past ten years AND you would have had a place to live AND home equity. Atlanta, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis and Vegas were losers, but even the losers didn't lose…

If you're centered on capital appreciation being the defining point of an investment, I might argue that capital appreciation of a home is based on the population growth and demand for housing in a particular area. If we assume that the population is constantly growing, then demand will continually grow unless there…

the ROI of a home depends on the home. That's one way that homes are different from bonds, they're not fungible.

renting is definitely buying you something: Freedom and mobility

you're talking about hedging risk. No matter what investments you choose, you still have to live somewhere. Since you're going to be alive for the foreseeable future, there's no reason to throw money away on a rental.

Buying a home offers several advantages that renting doesn't:

that argument is something a half-baked economics student might make.

your argument seems very theoretical and hinges on semantics.

that depends on the home. If you buy in the right place at the right time, you can treat your home as *both* a place to live and source of revenue for your future.

That's a generalization that's not always true. In some places the house is often worth more than the land due to cost of labor and materials. Yes, it depreciates over time but it's a big portion of the cost.

if all you care about is something to live in then why not live in your car, or under a bridge? You buy a house for many more reasons than that.

In both senses a house is an investment and I *am* making a good point.