when people talk about how great "home equity" is aren't they just talking about a bunch of unrealized gains? and if so, can't unrealized gains vanish in an instant?

>>60612441 (OP)
Your good health is unrealized gains, you could lose anything at anytime

Yes it’s unrealized gains, but you can also borrow against unrealized gains a lot of the time, so those people often will take out what amounts to really low interest loans by drawing down on their equity. Being able to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars at below 5% really improves your financial choices funny enough.

yes, they can vanish in an instant. but you can hedge against some of the reasons it might vanish, like by having insurance. but insurance won't pay you if you lose value because the neighborhood turns bad or because of larger economic trends. the real problem with home equity is that you can't diversify that investment and it is often the largest investment a person has.

>>60612441 (OP)
Real estate gains doesn’t vanish in an instant like crypto. A severe black swan crash in real estate is like 20-30% only

>>60612441 (OP)
It's the same with people in crypto posting portfolio pictures. If they haven't cashed out, all the gains are still unrealized and can go to zero

>>60612441 (OP)
Yeah but if your house goes down everyone elses does so it doesn't matter

>>60612441 (OP)
I've never made any money with anything, and even though I'm finally making a little something with slightly new dogs and my npc, I still feel like we're stuck at 40k and there's nothing I can do about it

>>60612441 (OP)
home prices are not nearly as volatile in most cases as financial asset prices although this is offset by the high degree of leverage people typically take on to purchase housing, so that equity is quite levered

home equity is good in the sense it can be borrowed against at a low interest rate relative to other financing options but beyond that it's kind of a meme - the only times your house price really matter is when you buy and when you sell. the in-between is meaningless

asdbumpasd

>>60612441 (OP)
All retirement is technically unrealized