The escalator to wealth is having your home paid off not buying a home. The big problem I see is that people feel they have to buy their "dream home" and spend large amounts of money on a house. A $100,000 home will take a LONG time to pay off so you will have mortgage debt for a long time. If people would buy homes with a reasonable price they could pay it off in a shorter time frame and could be done with a house payment sooner in life. For me having a home paid off so you get rid of debt is the biggest difference.