{"id":156,"date":"2026-11-01T22:58:54","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T22:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lynnemercer.com\/blog\/?p=156"},"modified":"2026-11-01T23:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T23:05:13","slug":"home-ownership-as-an-investment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lynnemercer.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/01\/home-ownership-as-an-investment\/","title":{"rendered":"Home Ownership as an Investment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clients looking for a home frequently ask me if buying a home is a good investment.  I explain to them that one of the benefits of home ownership is \u201cLeverage\u201d. What that means is this. Because you gain appreciation on the <em>entire<\/em> value of the home\u2014not just your down payment\u2014your percentage return on your invested cash can be much higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here is an example: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2022 You invest $400,000 in stocks<br>\u2022 The market returns 10%<br>\u2022 You make $40,000<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now compare that to the purchase of a new home:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2022 You use the same $400,000 as a 10% down payment<br>\u2022 You buy a $4,000,000 home<br>\u2022 The home grows 3% in value in one year<br>\u2022 That equals $120,000 in gain <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>Your return is not 3%, but 30% of your cash down payment. Same investment. Very different outcome.<\/strong><\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even if your $400,000 was a 20% downpayment on the same home, your gain after 1 year at just 3% growth is $60,000, still more than your stock investment at 10% gain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Call me to discuss your option<\/strong>s<\/p>\n\n\n<h5>Original article by Nikki James, Crosscountry Mortgage has been modified.<\/h5>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clients looking for a home frequently ask me if buying a home is a good investment. I explain to them that one of the benefits of home ownership is \u201cLeverage\u201d. What that means is this. Because you gain appreciation on the entire value of the home\u2014not just your down payment\u2014your percentage return on your invested [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":235,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lynnemercer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lynnemercer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lynnemercer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lynnemercer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lynnemercer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lynnemercer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162,"href":"https:\/\/www.lynnemercer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lynnemercer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lynnemercer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lynnemercer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}