Essay On Homeownership

Since the housing crash there have been a number of articles and talking heads lamenting homeownership. The opinion is that it's just not a good investment anymore and for some people homeownership is just not in their best interests.

Let's look at this from a long term prospective. Owning a home adds pride for the home owner as well as the neighborhood. You can drive down most streets in most any neighborhood and tell which homes are rented and which are owned by the people living there. Home ownership adds stability to the community and to the tax base. Crime is always less in communities where the majority of homes are owned instead of rented. And let's not forget about a home's value. Pride in ownership translates into taking care of

Housing values have plunged and people are losing their shirts. Yes people did buy in the heat of the market. And now the crash has caused their values to plummet. I know you've heard this over and over, but it happens to be the brutal truth: for a large number of those deals the people should have never have been allowed to buy the homes, and 'creative financing' should have been suspect. No money down deals, loans such as pay option ARM's (where you paid a smaller payment with the interest charges adding to the balance on the back end) seemed too good to be true. No one listened. Even worse, people making 100K were buying a house that cost 700K with no money down with loans that guaranteed failure. 'No document' loans were really popular (where buyers were saying they made twice as much as they did and agreeing to 5K a month in payments plus taxes and insurance). And let's not forget investors who bought homes that they never saw in towns they couldn't even find on a map. In my town of North Port, Florida I have talked to people who did not even know where North Port was when they bought 2 or 3 houses no money down and thought they were going to make killing on each one. Well, they know where the city is today, that's for