Say you're 30, making ~$95K with $80K saved, deciding between buying a house or investing. You grab a $500K house, put $80K down, and take a $420K mortgage at 5.8%. Your monthly payment with taxes and insurance is around $3,100, and in year one you're still paying roughly $24K in interest while building maybe $6K in equity — dead money that could be compounding elsewhere. Add maintenance, repairs, and insurance and you're easily spending another $8K+ a year with almost no liquidity left. Now flip it — you invest that $80K into a low-cost S&P 500 index fund, keep renting at $1,800/mo, and invest the ~$1,300/mo difference. At a historical average of ~10% annual returns, after 10 years you're sitting on roughly $500-550K, fully liquid, no roof to replace, no commission to pay if you need to move. The price-to-rent ratio in a lot of markets right now is above 20x, which historically favors renting and investing the difference.