Real estate - a perspective to make you feel better about purchasing your primary place of residence.
You've probably read and heard many people's differing opinions on real estate and whether or not it is a wise thing to do - either for investment or residency. There is traditional accounting the places your house on the asset side of the balance sheet with good reasons, and then there is the Kiyosaki argument that your house is a liability because its value is uncertain, it is not producing income, and is not nearly as good as that same amount of money in the bank. Both arguments have their merits.
When I bought my first house, I hadn't given it too much thought. I relied mostly on the simple argument that you shouldn't continue to build someone else's equity with your rent check. So I bought a house and started to pay the mortgage. When I finally got around to looking at the situation from a financial perspective, it was a little depressing - paying $1000/month interest and $200 toward principal? Ouch. I did a lot of work with real estate agents and sellers in the Arizona real estate market back when it was booming and everything pointed toward huge equity gains and people getting rich. So why the heck am I spinning my wheels putting $200/month into my equity account and throwing $1000/month at a bank?
All-in-all, home ownership is very nice in my opinion. You can do whatever you want to the property and you are accountable for the value you add or subtract from it. If you like to work on projects, home ownership can be very rewarding personally. So here's the perspective I had to take (maybe it will help you live with that huge interest payment too!) - I'm paying $1000/month to rent a great piece of property that I have 100% control over. In addition to my monthly rent check, I'm also putting $200/month into a high-yield savings account. Due to appreciation of the property, I can expect gains greater than the highest-yield savings account available and probably even better than the S&P 500 by the time I'm ready to sell. If it depreciates, well, I just threw $200/month out the window. You could blow that on a new car that you didn't need anyway.
So there it is - my perspective (or justification) on my home purchase. Maybe it'll help you to develop your own new perspective, or maybe you disagree with me entirely. You're entitled to your own opinion, so do what you want and here are some other fun real estate link and information that might help you along the way:
Real Estate
There are plenty of other adventures in life...keep going!
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Where is the adventure going? Where will you end up? Only time will tell, so enjoy the ride.