I think in the future we will see the separation of the “land” portion of real estate and the “building” portion of real estate.

The scam is that they make you believe that “real estate” is an investment but for the most part it’s like a car. As soon as you build a house the building starts depreciating, so there are maintenance costs that need to be accounted for.

Land on the other hand cannot be replicated and does not depreciate, land just is. But even that carries some risk with it (what if you buy a property and then in a year they put a dump next to it?).

So to make a proper real estate investment you will need to evaluate the land portion value and then the building depreciation aspect combined with any income that can be generated with that (rental property or individual use). That is a much more complicated calculation than yoloing on an expensive house to hold your wealth.