Agreed. My perspective on homes has fallen to "air-conditioned box", and I feel so much less stress this way. I don't care that my SFH in Texas isn't appreciating like $QQQ or $MSFT.

My general rule of thumb today is to not own construction older than 10 years. I look at home ownership in the same way as car ownership now.

It's ultimately a game of hot potato, unless we are talking about transactions via Sotheby's & friends. Homes in the 6 to low 7 figure range are not long-term things in my view anymore. You are never going to get more out than you put into one of those things, unless you are OK with experiencing an incredible amount of stress and expending untold amounts of time & energy fighting market forces.

Making gains on this kind of real estate is mostly a lie. It's the same variety of lie where we claim cloud->on-prem is cheaper by conveniently ignoring all of the other indirect costs.

I dont think that ever makes sense in reality for several reasons.

1) Cost of labor is going up, 2) Taxes are going up, and 3) Cost of materials are going up, and 4) Population is going up.

When My house was built is 1915, Taxes were 8% of GDP and cost of a carpenter was $0.50/hour. Today, Taxes are 40% of GDP and cost of a carpenter is $30/hour.

This means my house would be far more expensive, even accounting for inflation.

That would be more aligned with renting. For most people, their house is the biggest purchase they’ll ever make. It isn’t unreasonable to expect it to at least keep pace with inflation so they can sell it and afford to move into a nursing home someday. (Even with the massive growth we’ve seen in recent years, for most long term holders the annual rate of growth has significantly underperformed the markets, even before accounting for maintenance and taxes)

If it was simply a depreciating asset, housing would have to be sold for less than the construction cost in order for people to be able to sustain the depreciating value and have enough cash left over to invest elsewhere for their later years drawdown.

Is the implication that areas become less desirable or that there is always new housing so existing housing isn’t as desirable?

I’m not sure I understand this viewpoint at all.

Assuming you mean detached houses, how can this be without a decrease in demand for land in the area you live in?

Either more people want to live where you are living (meaning the location is desirable), or fewer people want to live where you are living (meaning it is undesirable).

Technically, you could have a decline in population, but immigration will probably make up for that for a long time.

It would be nice to have a situation in which land in desirable locations was not scarce and increasingly desired over time, I suppose, but its not a prequisite for a “healthy market”, and the other alternatives for achieving that require active intervention in ways which make it far fron a healthy market.

What do you mean by "depreciating asset"?

In the US you cannot depreciate your primary residence. Are you suggesting it should be possible?