$150K "Profit"

Scenario : 400K home, $40k Down, 2 years ownership, using a realtor, getting 7% loan (today's reality, maybe not yours)

* $14688 Closing costs -- according to nerd wallet on a 400k house w/ 10% down

* ~$33K Interest -- $500K on 30 yr loadaverage is 50% interest per payment across the whole loan (much worse in first 2 years)

* $25K Realtor commissions on sale (using conservative 5%)

* $8K Maintenance - 1% per year is a standard rule of thumb

* $8K Taxes - using national average on Smart Asset https://smartasset.com/taxes/property-taxes#2YWD4iYqn0

* $1K HOA

* 10K Downpayment + $24K equity portion of payments are Return of Capital (not profit)

Net profit = ~30K profit in 2 years.

You're double counting the down payment and equity payment. It doesn't count against the profit of the simple $150k number unless you lower the mortgage balance which would increase the $150k to $214k.

Another way to look at it is that even with your numbers, a 40k investment was turned into 1.25k monthly dividend vs. -2k month or so in rent (rough number based on house price).

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

You're not just 30k up from where you were two years ago

You're also up 78k from where you would be today if you had been renting at 2k/month those two years instead