64% of americans own their own home: https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf
88% of americans take the standard deduction: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/26/6-tax-breaks-youll-miss-on-your-2018-return.html
In my experience talking with homeowners, most dont do their own taxes and dont even know if they itemize or not. But 99% of people talk about the great tax breaks from owning a home!
exactly, your average competition in real estate is an average american with no experience and not a lot of time to research. very beatable. your average competition in stock trading in a computer and mathematical analysis built by a team of crack MIT scientists, not odds i will take.
you can't make blanket statements and generalizations like you have, you hve to due diligence and choose carefully. buying a house in 2010 was a no brainer, couldn't lose. these days, it's a lot worse of an investment; but your gotta run your own numbers based on your brackets vs comparable calcs.. they ahve buy vs rent calculators at the least.
many people don't understand the math behind real estate and their taxes, but they can follow the herd to see how rich people got off their homes. if you don't see how real estate is a good gamble = investment depending on your situation, then you dont understand the math or are ignoring it.
it's not what you don't know it's what you know that just ain't sothe real world i example, 150k/year income, i gave 600, now 950 over 4 years is 12% appreciation. 100k down turned in to 350k+ in equity (origin payments paying loan down over 48 months). I did something even more aggressive and now gained 1.3m in net worth over the 6 years off a 150-175k w2 (average out from bonuses, rsus, etc).
don't wnt to downplay what it took to do it. 100 hour weeks of brutal awful sheer determination and stress and made lots of mistakes.
san fran and san mateo areas have apperciated 12% /year from 2011-2018. united states on the whole, 6% a year. 1.12^7 = 2.21 = 121% appreciation rate.
source.
https://www.bayareamarketreports.com/trend/bay-area-market-surveyi don't expect that rate to continue, but neither stock market.
I've given you guys enough free hints. I spent 1000s of hours learning the tricks of the trade.