Buying builder stock or realty ETFs (or providers for builders - such as HD, LOW) is an easier way to ride up the wave.
The beauty of buying a "real" property is the possibility of leveraging if you use a loan. If you bought just last year at a good location, say a nice area in Phoenix with 20-25% down and got short sale closed, your down payment money has already been doubled by now.
You can use margin for stock trading for leveraging, but risk will be higher. For houses, you can rely on some form of cashflow to hold on for a while; for margin trading, an abrupt market shock can wipe out everything.
