[Karrot_Kream]

> Last year I sold a townhouse in Houston that I'd owned since 2000; I made money, but not the kind of upside that you wanna write home about

Sure but you made money. If you had rented you would have lost that money. Renting only makes sense if the opportunity cost is higher, e.g. if you think the time value of the money that would be put into the down payment is higher in the markets than it would have been on a home. The other thing is mortgages are risk uncorrelated with major equities, usually at least. If there's a major recession your equities may be underwater for a few years. Your fixed rate mortgage will stay the same.

[ubermonkey]

I'm saying it made sense for ME in 2000. I'm saying it's less obviously a good move for a 30 year old in 2026.

I have a strong suspicion that housing is due for a correction. Appreciation requires demand, and housing is now so expensive that Gen Z can't get on the ladder. That plus the looming Boomer die-off seems to point to a reversal of some housing gains.

[Karrot_Kream]

I think housing in the US is just such a complicated space (Fannie/Freddie backstopped loans, ridiculous zoning and building requirements (FAR, setbacks, etc), environmental laws, varying property tax regimes, prevailing wage requirements for building in places, etc that it's just really difficult to understand. It's like a ridiculously complicated layered system of public and private regs and incentives that lead to very inscrutable results.