Now that housing prices are relatively stagnant, is there any purpose to home ownership? The men interviewed for this New York Times article view houses as burdens unless they make them rich. A single man who has no intention of marrying wonders why he cannot find any satisfaction in his 3,300-square-foot home. And a couple who work a combined 150 hours a week at their jobs give up on ownership.

Michael S., who sent the article, writes:

Since when is it a “fairy-tale” to regard the house you own as a place to live in? Isn’t that what houses are for? Seems to me that, in light of the past decade or so, it’s a “fairy tale” to suppose that buying a house is going to make you financially rich. Seems to me that the purpose of “owning” the house in which you live is to create wealth of another, more lasting, kind.

Maybe the writer intends that looking at a house as a place to raise a family is a “fairy tale” in the sense that we hope that it ends in “happily ever after.” Well, we Christians do cherish such hopes. Things may not appear to turn out perfectly in this life. But we hope that the foundations we build in the families we create will ultimately lead to happiness [for]ever after. Seeing your house as a cash machine… well, that is a distraction at best, and for too many, an invitation to disaster.

Laura writes:

Did you notice this?

As a kind of entrepreneurial “nomad” in the 1990s, Mr. Greenburg bounced among eight cities in one five-year span. Recently, he and his newish boyfriend, a French national who has a short-term job in Atlanta, have daydreamed about starting a new business together — in the south of France. Owning a house, he said, “ties me down.”

Michael writes:

Oh yeah, I did notice that too. And I remember thinking, “how special for them.”

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