Houses inherently come with 5 to 10 times leverage—you can buy an entire property by putting down just 10% to 20% as a down payment. The bank adds leverage for you, but in doing so, it also ties your cash flow for decades to mortgage payments—can you guarantee your job will always be stable and that life will never bring unexpected setbacks? Just like in the gold rush era: those who consistently made money were often not the prospectors, but the ones selling shovels. Buying a house is itself a gamble—and if you gamble, you must accept the consequences of losing.