My god, this is the most HN comment of the day. You do know that most normal people buy a house not to resell it at profit, but to have a place to live, right?

I think most house buyers are buying it for resale value.

The point is it has value and can be resold later to get your capital back. Housing tends to be a mediocre investment at best but folks do generally expect to be able to get their capital back when selling.