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Also, it's worth noting that building a house isn't a hole that you throw money into, it's an asset that appreciates.

That is definitely not a universal truth. Anyone who has rented out a house knows just how expensive a bad tenant is.

I have had a few friends who were in that position because they had to move but couldnt sell their houses (2008-2014 era roughly). They would have been better off taking the loss on leaving it empty after taking out loans to undo the damage done.

Not if it gets trashed by the residents.

In a world where housing prices grow in an unbounded, absolutely detached from reality manner, it is.

It's actually the land which goes up in value. Houses go down in value, like a new car.

Sometimes this is masked, by regular maintenance, retrofits, and repairs. But if left to pot, a house is eventually worthless, then even a cost, for the new owner has to tear it down and rebuild.

Land appreciates. A house costs.

Depends on the house, but houses can get more valuable much faster than the minimal maintenance costs associated with them. That’s less common in earthquake zones, but scarcity can easily drive up prices because “they don’t make them like they used to” or something interesting happened in the location etc.

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