In our country, we refer to owning a home as the "Great American Dream." But do most Americans still feel that is true? The current market says "no" because many dreams are available at very reasonable prices with great financing and buyers are not buying them.
If owning a home is OUR dream, then we should be doing everything possible to obtain that dream right now. We absolutely may never see another market like we presently are experiencing. Perhaps our logic has been skewed by a changing thought processes in recent years. With all the "get rich quick" shows about making our fortune by flipping houses, maybe many Americans now look at a home like a savings account. Expecting our homes to make us independently wealthy has caused us to lose our "American Dream" mentality and we have become a bit greedy.
When we hear our home may be worth 10-25% less today than two years ago, we tend to become afraid. Much like we do when we see our 401k statement has gone down. The right logic we should use here is that unless we need to sell our home right now, it really doesn't matter what someone else thinks our home is worth. It is still our home! We should have bought the home to have a safe haven for our family, a place to go when the world outside is not so pleasant. What price can we put on such feelings? What does the ideas of a talking head on TV have to do with the true value of our home?
When we want to remodel the kitchen or paint the living room or change the carpet in the den, that should not be a decision we weigh financially. However, more and more we seem to evaluate "home improvements" as investments that should have an expected return on investment. If we want (or need) a new stove, we should think about features for using it for family lunch on Sunday or baking the turkey for Thanksgiving - not getting our money back when we sell the house someday.
Our "investment" mentality has caused us to be afraid of pursuing our "Great American Dream" because if our house is just a Piggy Bank, then we need to make a cold, well calculated, buying decision based on some investment formula.
However, if it truly is a dream - then we should buy our family a home. Live there for the next 20 years, have babies, get a dog, grow some flowers, plant a tree, and build some memories. We don't write poetry, tell sappy stories, and create emotional attachments to honor our investments. Or do we?
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