> I can sell the real estate or I can mortgage it and borrow against its value

You make money if you sell. You don't if you use the asset as security for a loan.

This has been explained several times.

A loan is a loan, whether it is a secured loan or not. A mortgage is a secured loan whose security is real property.

You are effectively claiming that getting a loan is making money. Obviously you do not see that this is clearly not the case when thinking about it through a mortgage, but would you make the same claim with credit cards or a personal loan to buy a car, or a secured loan against, say, your car? My guess is that you wouldn't although it is the same thing as getting a mortgage.

Instead of repeating myself, let me hear your side of the argument. If my property increased 9 times in value and I can:

A) Sell it and get that money right now, or

B) Mortgage it and get all or part of that money right now, then pay it back in the future.

By what kind of logic have you not made money from the value increase?

> You are effectively claiming that getting a loan is making money.

No, I said that you made the money when the value increased. Your ability to take a loan against it is the evidence that the value in fact increased. I never said anything else.