Heck, for all I know maybe that was originally the idea. Buying a place that you'll live for 30-50 years is absolutely an investment in your future, regardless of the paper value of your property.

But when property values are wielded as arguments to beat down proposals for growth, for transit, etc, it's clear that this isn't the meaning in use.

Exactly, you know your earnings are going to go down dramatically at retirement; slowly paying off a mortgage over 30 years was the accepted way to make your costs go down dramatically as well in the end.

Unless you end up getting a reverse mortgage, in which case I guess you were renting all along.

A boatload of tax-free profit, the first $250K is tax exempt for individuals and 500K for couples.

You pay taxes on the funds used to maintain the property. So unless you're in a market with obscene growth rates, you still lose money even if you earned capital gains on the transaction.

I just put together a spreadsheet assuming 1% maintenance, 1% tax rate, and 3.5% mortgage rate on a 250k house. You still would need a 5% annual rate of return to make money. After 15 years you would have hit your $250k capital gains limit, but you'd only have $70k in profit after taxes, interest and maintenance. At 3%, you lose money until well after the house is paid off.

I believe with proper documentation remediation is tax deductible in that you can raise your cost basis when you sell.

Further, your mortgage interest up to $750K is also tax deductible, and you have to index the whole thing to inflation. Once you do all that the costs are either nominal or negative on a 3.5% 30 year fixed deducted from a Bay Area income. Until Donny took us for a ride property taxes were deductible too.

This is what it looks like when owners vote.

That is mouse nuts compared to how much people get paid in stock around here

Also "I can recover sooner if my housing costs when I want to move."