I fail to see how that factors in to buying a property. You have friends who benefited from an inheritance.
> Owning a house in San Francisco is like having a standing offer of a million dollars to move to the Midwest.
Owning a house in the Midwest is like having an $xyz offer to move to <area with even lower house prices>. The offer exists whether you take it or not.
You could sell up and live in a tent too.
I don’t believe most people are willing to uproot their lives simply because they can get cheaper housing elsewhere. I’m sure it factors in but it’s rarely the driving motivator.
I think some of the points you made were fair. As a homeowner for instance you do generally have access to cheaper capital.
> You can borrow against your equity.
What equity? You advocated for putting as little as 5% down. You’re already going to have a higher than average interest rate and with such a small deposit it’ll be easy to tip into negative equity.
You only see the benefit years down the line and that relies on house prices rising in the short term.
> Because you can buy with so little down, having a lot of equity means it's pretty easy to buy again,
I’m not really following this argument. You’re suggesting buying with a small downpayment. You don’t have a lot of equity.