It offers some inflation protection

Although housing can't entirely protect you from inflation, studies by professor Karl "Chip" Case, of Case-Shiller, and others suggest that over the long term, housing has tended to beat inflation by a couple of percentage points a year. That's valuable inflation insurance, especially if you're young, raising a family and thinking about the next 30 or 40 years.

In the recent past, inflation-protected government bonds or Treasury inflation-protected securities offered easier forms of inflation insurance. But yields there have plummeted of late. That also makes homeownership look a little better by contrast.