An article in today’s newspaper grabbed my attention.  The article was entitled “Economy Doesn’t Deter Dream” and it discussed a survey that shows Americans still want to own homes.  It sparked my interest because of a conversation I had over the weekend with my wife, Gina.  It’s actually a conversation that takes place a couple of times each year…usually on a Sunday afternoon. 

You see, part of my Sunday routine is doing some of the outside household chores that I am not particularly fond of.  I am not one who finds pleasure in “tooling” around in the yard.   I am not good at, and do not enjoy, almost any kind of household maintenance.  On those Sundays when the list of things that need attention is longer than my attention span, we have this conversation.

“It’s time to move,” I say.  It’s not that I really want to move; we love our home.  But the lure of maintenance-free living is attractive.  It’s an elusive, and recurring dream of mine that when the weeds in the yard need taken care of, someone else does it.  When the pool system needs fixed, it magically happens.  Cleaning gutters, painting, etc; the list goes on.  So, in the past, the conversation has always been about buying a townhome or condo.

But lately the discussion has taken a new twist.  Instead of condo-living, we become renters.  I recently read an article entitled “Why I Am Never Going to Own a Home Again” (click here for the article).  The author discusses the financial and personal reasons why he will not own another home.  The financial reasons include the huge amounts of money spent to make the down payment and closing costs, and the ongoing costs of maintenance and taxes.  Personal reasons include the feeling of being trapped and the time you spend working on your house.

I can identify with him on several points.  When Gina and I got married, we used the proceeds from the sale of our “single” homes for the down payment and remodeling costs of our “married” home.  Unfortunately, we bought that home in 2005, just before the real estate market tanked.  It will be a long time, if ever, before we are able to see that money again.  If we would have rented a home, instead of buying the one we did, we could have either put that money in the bank or invested it, and now would have a very nice pile of cash that we could use for retirement, a trip to Italy, a couple of new cars, or a lot of other things we would like to do.  And that’s not including the costs of maintaining the house and paying property taxes.

It used to be that buying a house was the best investment ever for most people.  In our case, it’s the worst investment ever.  (Well not exactly.  I once bought stock in a company that I thought was going to be the next Microsoft.  At least our home is still here, unlike that company).  But, not only is the value of our home well below what we paid, it’s also illiquid…we’re trapped.  The crash in the real estate market affected the entire country, but Florida was one of the hardest hit areas.  And the news isn’t getting better.  The most recent reports on home prices show that the housing market is still weakening even though the economy is improving.

That’s why that article in today’s paper surprised me.  I thought that maybe the allure of owning a home, “the American Dream,” had faded.  But according to the article, the 3000 people surveyed in the “prime homebuying age group of 20-31,” when asked if they still want to buy a home, considering it could lose value, overwhelmingly answered yes.  Just as an aside, I do have to question the validity of a survey that considers 20 year-olds part of the “prime homebuying age.”

Now, don’t get me wrong…we love our home.  It’s a very nice home in a very nice neighborhood…but we could also have that same thing if we were renting…along with that pile of cash.