My first rogue thought is things are so fucked ATM that your move might be to buy a shitty duplex and rent out half of it. Business finance has so torqued that SBA(7a)s are better than conventional loans; you can't buy an apartment building with an SBA(7a) but you could buy a live/work space. you didn't know you wanted to make snowboards on the side, did you?

My second rogue thought is that the paradigm is probably shifting. Much of Europe doesn't own and never did, it's not a part of how they live but then, they have a social safety net. Houses in Japan only last 30 years because Japanese cities were victims to fire, earthquakes and hurricanes so why get wrapped up around something that Curtiss LeMay is going to reduce to ashes anyway? Commercial leases in France are nothing like commercial leases in the US; they can kick you out whenever they want and you pretty much have to front the entire lease period as cash (no wonder the Cartiers sold the plants some pearls). I don't know what that looks like short term or long term but it will persist in being advantageous to own real estate.

My third rogue thought is Zillow ate absolute shit trying to flip houses which is really funny because (1) fuck Zillow (2) no seriously, fuck Zillow (3) so much for your Zestimate bitchez. This only matters because all the single-family homes being snatched up by REITs are every bit as algo-fed as Zillow's bullshit. The system is due for a kick in the nuts.

An investing anecdote: I've been using a thing called Autopilot because, thanks to my checkered financial past, I manage seven or eight scattered 401(k)s, SEPs, Simples and other random funds above and beyond my pension. I threw some money at Warren Buffett back when TD Ameritrade still existed, and then Schwab ate them, and that took forever, and Autopilot didn't work with Schwab. Then Autopilot worked with Schwab and I had to clear out what I had to readapt to what I didn't and in the process of doing that I took a long, hard look at everything I owned and you know what? Everything is doing well.

This is one of those eras where you have to be a dipshit to lose money. Most people think it's because they're clever but fuck you NVidia has a three trillion dollar valuation even though they're out here saying dumb shit like we must strap a hundred thousand GPUs together to eliminate six-fingered memes and the market claps like a fuckin' walrus at Sea World.

BUT

Paying a percentage to a robot that can ape Warren Buffet or Nancy Pelosi or whoever 24 hours after they execute their trades? is doing REALLY well.

Don't hate the playa hate the game, and the game is rigged, and I think there's a lot more protection for financial shenanigans in the stock market than there is in single family homes. Something like 5% of the country owns stock but everyone within US borders wants a roof over their heads. I don't care how malfeasant you are, the low-hanging fruit is housing not finance and if the Justice Department is already going after rental orcs, Trump ain't gonna fuk widdat without a reason.