Letters to the Editor
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Stuck in the middle
I understand the attraction of renting and buying, and the need (and sometimes it is a need) to move.
I was born and raised in Detroit. After graduating from college (and working fulltime during it), I had almost no job prospects in Michigan, a state that has had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, off and on, for about three decades. I have watched my family and friends in Detroit go through round after round of lay-offs, stay unemployed for years, lose their homes to foreclosure (and not because of crazy mortgage terms, but because of a lack of income).
And still, they refuse to move. Other U.S. cities might be hiring in any and every field in which my friends cannot find work in Michigan, but they will not move. This is one case in which I agree with my dear Polish grandparents, who would LOVE to have more family nearby but say, "You go to where the jobs are. You have to work." Period.
So I moved to Chicago and bought a condo. And I didn't feel it was all it was cracked up to be. There I sat, in my condo with my mortgage, and that was that. Being solely responsible for a mortgage is stressful in a way I don't particularly enjoy. There's absolutely no net; if something happens to me, if I'm unemployed for more than a few months, I lose the house. To be honest, though, I don't truly own my house. Most of us don't. The bank does.
I had owned my condo for six months when my dream job found me - and happened to be in San Francisco. I was amazed at how many times I heard, "Well, you obviously can't take the job; you just bought a condo." I don't want to be a person tied to her house. I'm human, I can move - the house can't. I rented it quickly and moved, and am now simultaneously a landlord and renter. And money is a tad tight, but it's fine.
Now I'm in a city that is so expensive that there is no dream of homeownership. It is, in reality and not only in a theoretical conversation, something only the rich can afford. I have yet to meet anyone in San Francisco who believes that property ownership is a RIGHT, not just a PRIVILEGE. So, I hesitate to make too great a case against homeownership, lest more cities end up like this one, where the only way you're getting a solid downpayment together is the slim-to-none chance of a good IPO.
All this is a short way of saying: Sometimes it's necessary to move, and we should. Sometimes it's not necessary to move, and we just want to, and we should, homeownership or not.