"My house is not an investment... It is a family shelter, not a tax shelter." I know I shouldn't

[T Wolf]

have, but I am a glutton for abuse.

Anyway, at the site-that-shall-not-be-named, a reich-winger has an article about housing and markets that I find hard to disagree with.

"It is a house.
I don’t intend to make money off it; I intend to live in it.
It is not its paper value that matters to me, it is its intrinsic value. I don’t care what it is assessed for, or what it would sell for, I am concerned about its ability to protect my family from the elements and meet our shelter needs.
It is my home.

So the status of the economy and the housing-sales numbers are meaningless to me. I am not looking to sell my home, I am looking to live in it..."

For those who want to check out the entire thing but avoid "you-know-where" - here is the url... http://www.boblonsberry.com/writings.cfm?go=4

The basic idea is one that I totally agree with - the "moneyfication" of every god-damned thing in our society is what has fucked us beyond all recognition. The real damage is being done by those high-stakes gamblers who have turned the world economy into a big game of Texas Hold'em - except that they gamble with our money (when they lose) but pocket the profits for themselves (when they win).

I wish the author could extrapolate this view beyond his personal housing situation, but I'll take what I can get from them. Good ideas or rational thought is noticeably absent from their side.

[JustAnotherGen]

1. Good old Bob Lonsberry

finally said something sensible?

My dad used to call into his show all the time (when he was in Rochester) and he would always take his obnoxiously liberal calls. They'd go at each other for 10-20 minutes at a time! :rofl:

Emailing this link to my dad since I know he reads DU but isn't registered!

[old mark]

2. I really agree with you. We bought our house because of a series of

insane landlords we had to deal with. we bought an old row house, more than enough room for the two of us and our pets, a great yard and a stone patio. We remodeled it so we can live just on the first floor-full bathroom and washer-dryer in the kitchen, installed new thermal windows and did needed repairs. It will be paid off this month.
The best advice my dad ever gave me was to buy a house you LOVE, because they all will have problems and if you don't love it you will grow to hate it.
We still love and cherish the peace and good feeling we get from our home and have no plans to ever leave it till we are dead.

We never even considered it as investment.
Rec.

mark

[FBaggins]

3. This works IF you're planning on living there for a long time (or forever)

Then it really doesn't matter what you could sell if for because you have no intention of selling (and assuming you have a fixed-rate mortgage). If a declining value limits your future borrowing options? That may be a good thing.

OTOH, if you plan to move in three years or five... then you can't say what the author said. You should be renting. Otherwise it IS an investment (though not primarily) and while you may feel no need to MAKE money, you certainly care about the present value.

[Diane R]

4. I worry for people who buy into the 'rent, don't own' mentality.

Sure, it's nice to not pay property taxes, home insurance, and pay for upkeep and repairs. But even when people rent, they pay those costs anyway.

My husband and I own four houses. We each bought one before we married and kept those when we had to buy a third, larger house when we had our family. Inherited a fourth.

Here's the deal. We've rented three of those houses out for many years. Yep; eight semi-annual property tax payments, lots of home insurance and too many painting jobs, new roofs, replaced furnaces to count. But most of those costs were passed on to tenants in increased rent. We've never failed to net a large annual profit on all the rentals. In fact, after the houses were all paid off the rental income sent three kids through a top ranked university. And the value of the houses continued to rise.

But here's what matters. Once the house that you live in is paid off....it's paid off. At the end of 20 or 30 years, you OWN your home and no longer have to pay rent. It's much easier to retire in a house that you own than in a house you have to pay for each month.

It's a tough time for people to retire right now. I'm thankful that we have a house that free and clear, rather than facing years of monthly rental payments. I hope young family today don't get discouraged and believe it's better to rent. That may be true right now, but in 20 years they'll wish those payments had bought them a home.

[Crazy Dave]

5. You never own anything

Stop paying the property taxes and see who owns the homes.

I paid my house off 11 years ago but still have to pay $2,000 plus every year or it gets taken away and auctioned off by the county.

[Diane R]

6. True. But it's more secure than owing rent every month.

[jtuck004]

7. I am certainly glad that he has this point of view. If, as some of the

somewhat more than average forecasts predict, our GDP averages near 1-2% and unemployment decreases, it is quite likely that we will see the price of housing drop, maybe by as much as half over the next 4 years. So he won't be as disappointed. Even if it only loses a third he should be dancing in the streets. ;)

[Doctor_J]

8. Another reich-wing meme that sounds reasonable

Why shouldn't it be both? It was for 50 years, from the baby boom right after WWII until recently. Now that the Repukes have managed to sink the one thing that made the US middle class the envy of the world, it's not a big deal.

I expected better from you T Wolf

[Dems2002]

10. right blames government loans

According to a right-wing friend, she blames government home loans for increasing the cost of housing. According to her, housing was affordable in the past, but that changed with the creation of 30-year-loans brought to us by the government.

[drmeow]

11. That's not entirely correct

Houses were not viewed as investments the way they are now until about the 70's. Being able to buy a house was what made the US middle class the envy of the world, not the ability to make money by buying and selling a house.

[truedelphi]

12. Nice to view that info.

Thanks.

[drmeow]

9. I've been saying essentially that

for 15 years.

[jtuck004]

13. You are largely correct - but they were gambling with their own and borrowed

money (at ratios of 30, 35, and 40 to 1), buying subprime loans and shorting them so fast it encouraged people to throw away decades of conservative banking practice. It wasn't until they blew up that people selected by this country's elected representatives, i.e. Paulson, Greenspan, Geithner, Bernanke - in both the Bush and Obama administrations - made the choice to make it "our money" by compensating the people who caused the problem in the first place.

There was a time for a choice,(and they could have nationalized and broken up the banks, fired the crooks, and reinstituted Glass-Steagall), and it would have been messy, but it is possible that it wouldn't have been as messy and tragic as the decade-long effect that loaning $15 trillion (which will probably wind up costing us about $3 to $4 trillion of that) is going to have.