owning a home and dealing with all the taxes and upkeep is not a great investment compared to owning stocks IMO.

It might be a good idea to own a home for other reasons, but not as an investment.

Yup. A house is not an investment, it is a consumption item. If it goes up in value, that is just an interesting and happy occurrence.
Over the long term, owning is cheaper than renting, because the rent _must_ include taxes & upkeep & mortgage AND profit to owner. Overall.

There was a newpaper article in our local area. This lady & her husband rented an apartment just before WW2. He went overseas and became KIA. She stayed in the same apartment from 1942 to 1999. Rent of course increased over the years. Instead of a 20 year (the standard back then) mortgage, she paid rent for 48+ years. She paid the landlord for the apartment twice over and still had no equity.

The only reason to include house equity in your net worth is to inflate the number. Just like you wouldn't include your car(s), yacht(s), clothes, household items. It is an illiquid consumption item. Until you sell it and shuffle off into a nursing home.

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