Quote (badasses @ May 6 2015 12:34am)
you can easily invests in funds that perform relatively close to how much an average house will go up in value
one thing people overlook is the property tax and maintenance upkeep required to keep a home
if you factor all those costs in, it isn't very hard for a well-managed portfolio to match it
I think you're definitely overstating the easiness of investing. Everyone would do it if it was that easy. Chances are for most people the best investment they will make in their life will be the purchase of a home. You don't buy a home to make money, you buy it to life in and build toward something. If you buy a home for 300K and sell it for 350K 10 years later, even if you spent 75K on tax and maintenance, that's still better than renting for 10 years at $900/month (108,000 in ten years). In one, while overall you may have lost money, you have over $300,000 to put towards a new home. In the other case, you've literally thrown away over $100,000 for what realistically is very low rent. What kind of person who intelligently invests would throw away over $100,000.
I take home ownership and low-risk investments over renting and high risk-return portfolios any day. Renting is something to do while saving up to buy a house/condo. Investment like you talk about shouldn't happen at the expense of owning a home. If you can build toward home ownership and building your investments at the same time, sure. But chances are most people who rent cannot do that.