Yes, leverage is a powerful tool for wealth building. The reason leverage/debt is powerful in commercial real estate is that, unlike most investment vehicles, real estate is an asset class where debt is more easily and widely accessible. But mainly, when leverage is carved out, and at play in an investment, the less cash real estate investors have to contribute to an investment, the higher the rate of return they receive on that cash. For example, if you were to buy a property all cash for $1,000,000 and sell it next year for $1,500,000, your cash on cash return (before tax) would be 50%. Now, if you were to buy that same property but instead of using all your cash, you put down $200,000, and the bank financed the other $800,000 (80% LTV), you would have a cash-on-cash return of 350%. So as a result, you can get a higher multiple on every dollar, so instead of tying all your capital into one deal, all cash, you can buy several properties and get a higher return on your capital. That's the power of using leverage to build wealth in real estate.