To me, there is a difference between saying: "From my personal experience, when my friends ask my advice, I present them these reasons for not buying a house," and: "Nobody should ever buy a house."
If nobody bought a house, who would we rent from?
Update: fixed spelling
James is saying: don't buy a home and make it your primary residence. He is fine with buying real estate (homes, condos, apartment buildings, REITs, etc) as investment properties.
An added interpretation of mine: he assumes that you would have a property management company take care of the landlord duties for you. In the case of REITs, it's really hands off.
Sources:
By the way, this is going to sound like a contradiction: but I think housing is a great investment right now. I think housing prices have gone down far enough and I can list the reasons why housing as an abstract investment concept is going to go higher from here.
- from the linked article
Rather than spend $100-200k+ on a down payment for a house (which is like throwing money away since it is completely illiquid as long as you own the house) you can put that money in a portfolio of diversified REITS (REZ is an ETF of residential REITs, for instance) if you truly believe in housing. You can do it with some leverage as well if you believe in the idea (like 90% of Americans do) that you should leverage up 200% the single largest investment in your portfolio (your house).
- from http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/02/never-own-a-home-again/