> We've conflated having a home with a financial asset.

And it's a really, really shitty one. My house has roughly doubled in value since I bought it, but in practice that's useless to me. I can't claim that value without rendering myself homeless. If anything it reduces my mobility by making it harder to move, since I really need to coordinate the sale of my current home with buying the new one to help absorb that $500k or whatever price tag.

My if house prices dropped by 50% or more drops my net worth on paper, but it doesn't actually change anything. I still have a place to live + my savings, investments, etc.

> I can't claim that value without rendering myself homeless.

HELOCs ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_equity_line_of_credit ) exist to solve the problem of cash being locked up in your house. You can take a line of credit using the property as collateral or other purchases.

> I can't claim that value without rendering myself homeless.

Are you using some peculiar definition of "homeless" as someone who does not own real estate, like in Elon Musk had been homeless when he sold his California houses?