I know I am going to make many economists cry big (good!), but in most ways that matter, real estate wealth is fake wealth. Especially with how the differences between geographically-disparate markets have compressed, if you sell your home, well, you still have to live somewhere and you’ll be paying about the same for that too. There will not be any appreciable net gain.

The wealth equation is obviously different for companies that own and then rent out a lot of real estate (which should not be allowed), but for an individual? These days real estate wealth is almost-entirely artificial. How we do housing and treat it as an investment is a drag on GDP, productivity and living better lives. We need to break the back of the idea of real estate as an investment, because it’s a terrible and risky one even apart from its other huge disadvantages.

And it creates fake wealth where we all become like dragons purposelessly sitting on our real estate hoards.