Morgage means NOT owning your house

Equity is just a very expensive savings account. You could rent wherever you like, even a house, and put the different between a mortgage and the rent into a savings account and the only difference is liability. You can walk away from a rental and keep a savings. The house could crash in value and you keep your savings and possibly lower your rent increasing the contribution to your savings. The reverse is true if the home increases in value. Homes and land do have real value and can be used to create wealth, but for the most part they are a greater liability, and when home / land values fluctuate so much based on prospective (what people think they are going to be valued at, and what people think other people think they are going to be valued at) makes a mortgage a special type of gamble, and of what we have seen recently in the US, an investment "gamble" similar to junk bonds. Personally, there are much safer investments with higher return and liquidity without the liability. Buy LAND with cash when it constitutes a CAPITAL INVESTMENT :)