"My point is this: if the money used to buy a house is entirely from your salary then it is a terrible decision, if any part (or better the whole sum) comes from the dividends of an investment then it is a smart move."
A completely invalid point as already raised by plenty a lot smarter than I on this thread.
Surely it's irrelevant where the money comes from to purchase a house. Let's leave aside the other benefits of home-ownership, such as the removal of potential evictions for now.
Purely from a financial perspective, and given the two options, one of either the return on investment of owning your own home or the return on investment on the stock-market is going to win out. Surely, your opinion that buying a house through salary is a terrible decision whilst buying with dividends is a smart move can't hold true. If the long term return on investments was such a clear cut winner over the long term return on home-ownership versus renting, surely you'd continue to pump your dividends into these investments versus EVER buying your own home. How many people in Ireland do this - and I'm not talking just your average Joe, I'm talking everyone, include the super-wealthy?
Looking at it from another angle, the average gross yield of a 3-bed property in Ireland is 7.9%. That equates to €23,700 annually to rent a €300,000 house (and has been rising quickly in recent years). The interest only mortgage, if you could get one, on the entire €300,000 balance, would cost €12,450 (€11,250 less) at a rate of 4.15%.
The reality is that you'd only be tying 10% of that €300,000 up in the house to make these significant savings and would mortgage the remainder. In other words, allocating €30,000 to a mortgage deposit results in savings on the rent-v-mortgage costs of €11,250 per annum. If we allocate 1% of the house value, or €3,000, towards expenses incurred as a homeowner versus a renter, that's still €8,250 in savings.
To gain €8,250 in investment income from €30,000 to cover these savings as a higher rate tax payer would require a return of 52% annualised - just to stand still.
I've read Robert Kiyosaki's book myself and, whilst I believe he does raise a lot of valid points, taking his teachings as gospel and applying it to the decision of whether to buy or rent your own home in Ireland will, inevitably, turn out into a bad decision because the only way you can gain 52% annualised via investments is by going WAY, WAY beyond the realms of what would be considered prudent investment.