[frumper]

> That depends heavily on your goals. I hear this a lot, but it always reads to me like people think equity just magically happens when you buy a home (with a mortgage). No, you have to put money into it monthly, and a portion of that goes to pay of principal, which builds equity.

I feel like you're missing that you have to put money into a place to live monthly anyway and in the past decade the equity is built up through home value appreciation. My area has been seeing 7-10% increases for quite some time. That equity increase far outstrips what principle I'm paying off.