Also buying anything can be or not an investment. If you buy some bananas expecting to sell them for profit, then it is an investment.
Should countries also stop buying and selling bananas for profit? After all, eating is a basic need, more so than housing.
What makes most house buying decisions speculative is how the market price is justified. And today the "residual value" (value of the asset when you sell it) dominates buying decisions. This is defined as speculation (in future market price).
Without residual value, the market for old houses would be like the market for old cars or bicycles.
Imagine if government legislation enabled lenders to lend random amounts with old cars as security: it would put a price floor on second hand cars. Since second hand cars are of limited supply, and ownership of such a car enables you to borrow at minimal rate, therefore the market price of an old car becomes the value of the getting that loan.
America subsidizes homeownership specifically so now everyone does that, but people’s first and only house is definitely an investment.
Housing is a basic need, homeownership isn’t one, any more than running a farm is a basic human need.
Every California rental I've lived in for the past five years had the owner residing in it as their primary residence, renting out the spare rooms, while doing one of two things: not declaring any of the rental income while still getting primary residence tax breaks, or declaring it as a full rental (and using another address as their primary address, despite not living there), and writing off the exorbitant Bay Area HOA fees.