If you own stock you are, in fact, much better off than in early 2009

[BlueStreak]

4. I suppose that is possible, but it seems unlikely to me.

In most markets, the home value was very near the bottom by early 2009 and has rebounded at least somewhat since then.

It sounds like you did not have your home up for sale in 2009, so how could you really know the value? Are you just assuming what you wished or hoped the value might have been then? It is very easy to replay a false history here.

Housing in most markets is reaching an equilibrium where the used stock is in proportion to the cost of building new. That was not true before the 2008 collapse because a supply demand imbalance (caused mostly by way-to0-easy credit) caused the used stock to become artificially inflated.

What that means in practice is that if you bought anything in the past 10 or 15 years, your current value may be a little lower than your purchase price. But you also lived there rent-free for so many years. Housing is a good deal.