Owning
a
home
has
been
marketed
to
us
as
part
of
the
American
dream
for
centuries.
George
Washington’s
hobby,
while
otherwise
engaged
in
trying
to
win
the
Revolutionary
War,
was
writing
detailed
letters
to
craftsmen
meticulously
explaining
what
he
wanted
in
terms
of
renovations
to
Mount
Vernon.
Washington
was
frequently
disappointed
in
the
updates
to
his
home,
and
they
contributed
mightily
to
his
pre-presidency
financial
problems.
In
these
regards,
I
suppose,
you
can,
and
likely
will,
indeed
emulate
his
version
of
the
American
dream
of
home
ownership.
Beyond
that
recognition,
don’t
buy
into
the
hype.
I
own
a
house.
A
couple
weeks
ago
the
screen
door
fell
off.
Metal
fatigue,
you
see.
So,
fine,
those
were
old
hinges
that
they
don’t
even
make
anymore.
My
dad
offered
to
come
over
with
his
drill,
we
went
to
the
hardware
store,
and
a
couple
hours
later
my
screen
door
was
more
or
less
fixed.
This
morning,
I
was
reading
a
book
in
my
bedroom
and
heard
a
faint
tapping.
What
the
hell?
Could
that
be
water
dripping?
Indeed.
Despite
having
had
my
roof
replaced
last
summer,
there
it
was,
a
little
pool
of
water
gathering
on
my
upstairs
floor.
Well,
at
least
there
was
no
longer
any
need
to
plan
my
day
out.
It’s
always
something.
The
furnace,
the
plumbing,
part
of
your
fence
blowing
away,
vermin,
a
poorly
placed
tree
growing
into
some
piece
of
essential
infrastructure
—
owning
a
home
is
a
slowly
simmering
fight
against
eclectic
natural
forces
that
want
to
cleanse
us
off
of
the
earth’s
surface.
And
that’s
to
say
nothing
of
the
more
routine
maintenance:
all
the
hours
pointlessly
thrown
away
on
lawn
upkeep,
painting,
etc.
When
I
bought
a
house,
I
wanted
a
place
to
sleep
and
to
store
my
books,
not
several
additional
hobbies.
But
it
comes
with
the
territory,
and
at
least
a
home
is
a
good
investment,
right?
Wrong!
A
home
is
a
terrible,
risky
investment
with
very
poor
returns
compared
to
what
else
is
out
there.
A
certain
Machiavellian
“Game
of
Thrones”
character
once
said
his
unorthodox
investment
choices
beat
investing
in
ships
because
they
rarely
sink.
Your
home
is
not
going
to
sink
(unless
you
live
on
a
houseboat
or
in
Florida)
but
it
very
well
might
burn,
flood,
or
be
shaken
into
rubble
by
movements
of
the
nearest
tectonic
plate.
Yes,
you
have
insurance
for
this
sort
of
thing
(unless
you
live
in
one
of
the
many
places
insurers
will
no
longer
touch
or
don’t
have
specific
coverage
for
whatever
particular
risk
your
home
succumbs
to),
but
you
are
paying
a
lot
of
money
for
this
insurance
every
month.
Believe
it
or
not,
there
is
no
need
to
insurance
the
money
I
have
sitting
in
my
brokerage
account.
Sure,
the
cost
of
insurance,
property
taxes,
and
maintenance
all
factor
into
rent
as
well.
But
collectivized
and
spread
out
(when
many
renters
share
the
same
roof,
for
instance),
these
costs
are
far
lower
per
person,
in
addition
to
the
big
positive
factor
of
not
having
to
really
worry
about
it
yourself.
Multifamily
housing
is
way
greener
than
single-family
housing
too.
OK,
but
what
about
all
the
studies
that
show
homeowners
are
better
off
financially
than
everyone
else?
Well,
I
bet
someone
could
also
do
a
study
to
confirm
my
hypothesis
that
Rolex
owners
are
better
off
financially
than
everyone
else,
yet
that
does
not
mean
it
is
owning
a
Rolex
that
causes
wealthiness.
People
buy
homes
for
many
reasons,
among
them
that
a
home
is
a
status
symbol
to
show
off
how
awesome
you’re
doing
to
your
neighbors
who
couldn’t
care
less
about
it.
People
buy
a
home
because
they
are
well-off.
They
do
not
become
well-off
by
taking
out
a
mortgage
with
a
heinous
interest
rate
if
they
are
otherwise
in
a
poor
financial
situation.
We
do
now
come
to
the
one
place
where
owning
a
home
is
better,
sort
of,
than
doing
certain
other
things
to
store
your
wealth.
Unlike
other
forms
of
assets,
you’re
living
in
this
one,
so
it’s
harder
to
siphon
off
the
stored
value
that
you’d
otherwise
be
tempted
to
use
on
overpriced
handbags
and
big
gas-guzzling
SUVs
and
shiny
stones
to
wear
around
your
neck.
People
do
have
a
lot
of
wealth
accumulated
in
their
homes,
and
property
values
do
often
go
up
over
time
(I
actually
made
a
killer
return
on
selling
my
first
home
—
a
condo
—
and
there’s
a
nice
tax
exclusion
for
that).
Yet,
property
values
do
not
always
go
up.
See,
the
Great
Recession,
Detroit
(prior
to
getting
its
act
together
in
the
past
several
years),
and
probably
many
major
metropolitan
areas
as
it
increasingly
sinks
in
that
most
city
workers
can
work
from
home,
can
be
replaced
by
AI,
or
will
have
no
one
to
inherit
their
housing
since
our
birth
rate
is
in
steep
decline.
But
you
know
what’s
generally
a
way
better
investment
over
time
than
a
house,
even
in
a
rising
real
estate
market?
A
simple,
boring
old
stock
market
index
fund.
My
friends
who
are
not
equities
investors
like
to
brag
about
how
much
the
paper
value
of
their
homes
has
gone
up
on
their
property
tax
statements,
but
that
just
means
you’re
paying
more
in
taxes
every
year.
Sure,
you
will
pay
a
capital
gains
tax
when
you
sell
securities,
but
right
now
it’s
only
15%
for
most
taxpayers,
and
you
only
pay
it
once
(you
won’t
pay
any
at
all
if
your
funds
are
held
in
a
Roth
account
and
you
can
make
it
to
age
59½
without
withdrawing
them).
Tax
benefits
aside,
consider
the
gains.
The
S&P
500
reached
5,000
recently.
It
was
at
2,500
in
2017
(it
very
briefly
fell
below
2,500
again
in
2020
because
of
the
pandemic,
which
I
don’t
really
count
since
it
sprang
back
up
again
immediately)
and
was
at
about
1,250
in
2010.
Some
homes
in
some
areas
might
have
doubled
in
value,
and
then
doubled
in
value
again,
over
the
course
of
the
past
14
years.
But
not
very
many,
and
not
without
their
owners
pumping
a
ton
of
time,
effort,
and
money
into
them
in
the
meantime.
So,
renters,
you’re
not
missing
out
on
anything.
As
long
as
you
don’t
have
an
overly
exploitative
landlord,
the
only
thing
you
are
missing
out
on
is
a
ton
of
headaches.
If
you
are
putting
your
savings
into
a
broad
stock
market
index
fund,
perhaps
even
in
a
Roth
IRA,
you
are
probably
making
much
better
investment
decisions
than
the
average
homeowner
out
there.
Forget
about
house-poor:
cash-rich
sounds
a
lot
more
like
the
American
dream
to
me.
Jonathan
Wolf
is
a
civil
litigator
and
author
of Your
Debt-Free
JD
(affiliate
link).
He
has
taught
legal
writing,
written
for
a
wide
variety
of
publications,
and
made
it
both
his
business
and
his
pleasure
to
be
financially
and
scientifically
literate.
Any
views
he
expresses
are
probably
pure
gold,
but
are
nonetheless
solely
his
own
and
should
not
be
attributed
to
any
organization
with
which
he
is
affiliated.
He
wouldn’t
want
to
share
the
credit
anyway.
He
can
be
reached
at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.