> I know a lot of people (including myself) have "sell home, move to a lower cost-of-living area, roll excess cash into retirement funds" as part of their retirement plan.

Which is why almost any talk of trying to actually make systemic, long-term fixes to the housing market--to move it back towards something that provides housing for actual people instead of an investment vehicle for those (shrinking few) who are lucky enough to get on the property ladder--feels doomed to failure. That this situation sustains means that people who have spent many years in a place that is a high cost-of-living area will not be able to retire there unless, again, they got lucky on the property ladder.

On a macro level, people will say that they want fixes and that people should be able to find housing near jobs and all of that. But, at the individual level, rising housing prices that stay high over the long term are beneficial to so many people in a way that, were it to change, would fundamentally crash their post-work prospects. So everyone who owns property is scared to death of that being undermined, to the point that it is, intentional or not, an "I got mine don't touch it" situation.

I know that's a bluntly unfair way to put it because people are simply playing the game as it exists, but that it's unfair doesn't mean it's not also true.

If you need to either own or rent 12 shares of a tech company so you have somewhere to sleep, and if the value of each tech company stock rises and falls roughly in line with that of other tech companies in the region, then the comparison is fair.

It isn't about limiting yourself solely to the utility value, but about the difficulty in separating the utility from the investment.

You can sell your shares for market value at any time, and use the proceeds for whatever you want.

If you sell your only home, you usually then need to spend money on replacing it, whether in the form of rent, mortgage, or using the proceeds to buy outright.