A house costing money to maintain doesn't make it not an asset. If the house has any value, it's an asset. That's literally the definition of an asset. If you want to dispute whether it's a good investment, fair enough, but it is factually an asset.
Definition: An asset puts money in your pocket. A liability is costing you money.
The longer you keep a liability, the more it will cost you.
A house is not earning you money, unless you can rent it out and even then it's not always break even.
It's an obvious mistake to label your own house as an asset, and most of the confusion is deliberate by the industry that builds and sells houses. Real estate agents and bankers will keep insisting on spreading the myth that a house is an asset but it's not.
The fact that you save rental money by living in your own house does not make it an asset, the same way that having a car is saving you taxi money.
Is a car an asset? A car has (any) value, so that would make it an asset in your definition, correct? It's clear a car is a liability because it is costing you tax money to keep it on the road, it is costing you insurance annually, you have to pay for a parking space or garage to just store it and if you actually drive it, it's costing you fuel. And intuitively you see it as a liability because it actually (most of the times unless it's a rare classic car) decreases in value when you try to resell it.
Yes house prices can go up, but that does not mean it's an asset. If you think houses go up in value then you never owned and maintained a house. Any house older than 20 year will cost you a fortune in maintenance to keep it up to specs with for example isolation and heating. A house 40 years old has little value unless you want to redo all the plumbing and electricity.
So why do house prices sometimes go up, even if after they are sold they are gutted and completely refurbished? Because of the location: land prices go up and having a casco of a house on it, means you can rebuild it within the existing zoning restriction rules.
Houses are not an asset. If it would be an asset, the bigger the home, the more money it would put in your pocket. The more houses you owned, the money they would generate...
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=the+house+you+live+in+is+not+an+assetI know it's confrontational for many people aspiring to own a house (and please don't take it personally that I'm pointing this out jaysabi) but trust me: your house is not an asset
Don't take my word for it, google around