If you buy your house in a place where it LOOKS like it has potential and then 5-10 years later has grown, you can sell your house for multiples what it originally cost.
My parents bought a house in Murrieta, California for about $130,000 back in 1997.The local area was just south of Lake Elsinore and the town was a dustbowl being developed. Last I saw, the place was grown so much that you couldn't recognize it. It looked like your typical well-grown SoCal suburban city. Earlier this year, due to my dad's job move, they sold their house for more than 3x that amount and were able to find a wonderful place in Yuma, Arizona. Now, looking at Yuma, it's a desert town BUT it's growing the same way Murrieta was. Costs for nice homes are low at the moment, but give it 5 years and THAT house will be worth a ton of money as well.
If you play the real estate game just right, you can turn one HELL of a profit. A girl I work with had a home for a year with her husband, and when they divorced, they sold the home - for $60,000 more than they paid. I was talking to her one day and she said she didn't know what she wanted to do with her half of that money. She's not going to spend much of it, but she is going to buy a few nice things.
