> Investment at this turbulent time means putting your money at risk in an unforeseeable future.

As a counter-argument, there are many things unpredictable about home ownership to be considered.  Value not guaranteed to always increase; neighborhood not guaranteed to always be friendly/stable; maintenance costs can be wildly unpredictable from year-to-year; you or your spouse's job may move and the house can't; interest rates can change significantly between the 5 year refinancing periods like you pointed out.  Also there's things like floods and fires that can make the security of your investment null (ignoring insurance) in an instant.

I think we can agree that neither investments in housing nor in securities are guaranteed to be a sure thing.  But reaching retirement with no investment assets and only a paid-off mortgage is a guarantee of trouble.  In other words, I'd rather have a shot at secured retirement income rather than making the mortgage providers and RE agents rich.