That's supposed to be an either thing?

Eh, owning land is the closest thing a regular person can have to a real investment. I bought a shitty house back in 2019 and sold it recently without having made any improvements to it at all, yet it sold for enough money to offset all of the mortgage payments I'd made since purchasing it. Sure, all it did was make me break even on housing, rather than actually profiting from it, but that's a hell of a lot better than 4 years of $1,000+ rent payments a month down the drain. I'd likely have made a decent profit if I'd done anything to fix it up.

I used the money from the sale to buy an actually decent house in a better neighborhood that I'd never have been able to afford back in 2019, even though my financial situation has stayed pretty much the same. And this house will likely sell for an actual profit in a few years if I decide to move again, while being a great place to live in the meantime to boot.