You seem to forget that you got a place to live for those years, even if your investment didn't turn a profit. I don't know what the rental market is like where you are, but a ~$200k "loss" seems comparable to what you would've paid to rent a modest house-sized space in a major metropolitan area over those 8 years. That works out to 2k/month cost to live in a house, which seems like a pretty great deal to me after paying ~$1500/month for crappy 1bdrm or studio apartments.
