The first visit to someone’s home adds details to every future conversation with them.

Seeing where someone lives changes every conversation afterwards. You now have the room, the light, the particular chair, and their mentions of home stop being abstract. A single visit supplies a background that years of conversation would not have produced.

This is a reason to accept invitations and to extend them, even when the place is not impressive. The tidiness matters far less than the access. And if you are trying to know someone better, going to where they are is worth more than another meal on neutral ground, since context is most of what you have been missing.