Keep your property rights? For one thing, even absent EPA busybodies and property taxes, there is less chance you are going to turn a profit on real estate than stocks. Sure, you can pick specific time periods where real estate outperformed the market, but given the 30-40 year timespan of retirement planning real estate is pathetic compared to stocks.
When you throw in government busybodies zapping your property rights and greedy school districts taxing the fool out of you, real estate is nothing more than very expensive rent.
Property rights were lost the first time anyone had to pay a tax on property. And it has only gotten worse.