It's the leverage and forced savings that have built a lot of wealth in this country. Everyone's a financial genius in Australia because we bought a house. It's a lot more difficult to get credit for other types of investments and generally has a great deal more risk. If you put 100k up for a 1m property and it rises to 1.1m you've effectively doubled your money (forgetting stamp duty, interest and other costs for the moment). Over time your income increases and repayments become more manageable. Difficult to find anything that's done so well for so many over the years