This sounds like an "inflation hedge" rather than an ordinary investment:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/inflation-hedge.asp

There are lots of different types of investments. Housing is historically considered an excellent hedge against inflation ("Land, they aren't making it anymore")

However, purchasing a house it is not just an inflation hedge. It comes with a house you can live in! This is an attractive quality for many of us humans who like living in homes.

Taking the modern definition of inflation as measured from the purchasing power of currency within the economy, you'll find house price increases are actually a major driver of inflation. If you allowed construction and more supply, house prices would stabilize and inflation would go down. If you want to hedge inflation just buy Series I bonds instead. There's other ways.

Really though, I would argue that housing in aggregate is not a good hedge against inflation because while it is true that the price of an average square foot of housing in the United States has gone up almost zero percent adjusted for inflation over the last 50 years, you have had to do 50 years of maintenance on it, 50 years of insurance premiums, 50 years of paint, siding, roofing, etc. And a 5% realtor commission. By definition, it has therefore, on average, trailed inflation.

If you are looking at specific houses, in specific areas, that's not "housing is a good hedge against inflation" it's "if we look at the winners in a speculative market, we find that they have won" which isn't so much an investment philosophy as a tautology.

That said a mortgage may be a good hedge against inflation but only by virtue of it being a long-duration fixed-interest debt facility with preferential interest treatment at income tax time. And 5X leverage.