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A comment on If You Can’t Afford the Rent, It’s My Problem, Too. Parent comment

Re:If You Can’t Afford the Rent, It’s My Problem, Too by kelnos on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @04:54PM (#19505924)
Not the OP, but also to consider is the high exemption on capital gains tax to be paid on a home sale: $250k for single owners, or $500k for joint owners. If I buy a house for $500k, live in it for a few years, and sell it for $750k, I get that $250k in gains tax-free.

> The tax deduction is nominally smaller than the equity you would gain on an equivalent amount of money going to principal rather than interest.

True, but you can't ignore the "choice (3)" that you mention. I'm not in the market for a house right now, but if I were, I would absolutely get a mortgage even though I could pay cash for the whole thing. It's a non-zero risk, but I feel it's a reasonable bet to believe I can make enough in the markets to more than offset the mortgage interest, especially with the MID in play reducing my overall tax.

That doesn't really address the point the parent was making about buying a house being a good tax shelter (I agree with your premise if you restrict thinking to just that), but I don't think it's safe to ignore it in the bigger picture, either.

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Re:If You Can’t Afford the Rent, It’s My Problem, Too by ww520 on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @06:40PM (#19506922)
The exemption on capital gain tax on house sales is for avoiding taxing the gain from inflation over the years.
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Re:If You Can’t Afford the Rent, It’s My Problem, Too by kelnos on Thursday March 28, 2019 @04:34AM (#19510359)
Doesn't really matter what it's for; at the end of the day you don't pay tax on the gain. If I invest in a stock or mutual fund that sadly only grows with inflation, the IRS still gets its cut from my gains. Home sales are (AFAIK) unique in this treatment.
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