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I think it depends on where you're buying your house. The value of my house dipped slightly in 2008/2009 but is now about 12% higher than it was in 2007. Buying a home is still a good long-term investment but you have to be in a position to hold onto it (perhaps by renting it out after you vacate it).

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Mostly the interest and upkeep that are keeping me away from purchasing.

If I bought a 200k house, in 5 years I would have paid 43k in interest and still owe 180k on the mortgage (according to some amortization table I found), and probably many thousand more fixing stuff that breaks.

After 30 years I will have paid $164,813 in interest, so even if the house doubles in value it doesn't seem like a great investment.

Am I missing something? Maybe I'm not understanding it correctly but it doesn't seem like that great of a deal.

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