> If you buy a house with 5% down and the housing market goes up 50% in 5 years you’re not an investment genius, you just took a risky highly leveraged bet and it paid off (and housing bets at least in America do tend to pay off thanks to the insanity of central-bank-attributable rock bottom interest rates as well as the essentially propagandistic way that Americans are taught to think about real estate)

I agree with most of what you're saying, but if your mortgage is non-recorse (which is the case for purchase first-mortgages in CA at least), I wouldn't say it's a risky bet. If it goes poorly, you can walk away and the bank gets your house (and you get imputed income maybe). You only lose your down payment and any equity, which at 5% down is probably less than the loss the PMI took.

It's not the same riskyness as say buying stocks on margin, or selling short or writing uncovered options.