Some more about houses...

For our anonymous poster from below, a couple of articles from Salon.com:

Flip this house, please!

and

I bought a house, and now I'm crying everyday

Here's just a snippet from the second one:

I am 35 years old, and we recently bought our first house. I have cried every day since. Our house is an older fixer-upper. All I could see when we looked at it was lots of potential. Most of my TV time is spent watching shows like "Flip This House" or "Designed to Sell." They make it look so easy. There were so many red flags, but for some reason I persisted.

I could read stuff like that all day long. Just for the record, though, I don't hate home ownership--I just think we have way too much of it. In fact, I agree with this guy who wrote a well-considered response to the 'Flip this house, please' article:


Home ownership is kind of cool, though. You can paint the walls and know that any improvements will benefit you, not a landlord. The bank can't raise the "rent" (never, EVER, get an adjustable loan, unless you are a financial expert). If you plan on staying put for 10 years or more, and you're careful, you will find it a positive experience. (my emphasis)

Hell, in fact, this guy is even more conservative than I am about it--I've always said five years, not ten. But, because the very thought of spending ten years in one place fills me with existential dread, I know that owning a home is always going to be like wearing a shoe that's too tight. And the housing market is only going to really get better once all of the dreamy-eyed (see above), the flippers, and the dudes like me who aren't in it for the correct time frame get squeezed out.

Anyway, point taken--enough about all of this for a while. Maybe we'll move on to golf...