The benefits of homeownership

The hidden advantages of having a place to call your own.

by John Eckstrum   What is the value of homeownership?

Sure, there are benefits you can punch up on a calculator, like tax deductions and investment appreciation, but there’s so much more. So many intangibles. I’m talking about the security a child feels knowing that the front door she walks through today will be the same front door next month, next year–maybe even far in the future when she brings her kids to Grandma and Grandpa’s. I’m talking about developing friendships with your neighbors and feeling you have a place in the community. I’m talking about planting a vegetable garden in the backyard because you know you’ll be around when the tomatoes are ready for harvesting.

Some groups have tried to measure the intangibles of homeownership, and the findings don’t surprise me. One study showed that homeowners rated themselves to have a higher sense of self-satisfaction and lower levels of depression. People who owned homes also were more likely to say they were sure that their lives will work out than those who don’t own their homes. Additional research suggests that, all other factors being equal, children in homeowning households dropped out of high school at a lower rate and had a lower teenage-pregnancy rate than children in families that did not own their homes.

The studies make disclaimers about the differences between the two groups being small and the inability to assign cause and effect. That may be, but I don’t hesitate for a second to offer my opinion–based on my childhood, my experience as a homeowner, and the years I’ve spent helping others to become the same–that having a place to call your own is both comforting and empowering. I sometimes think about what my life would have been like had I not had always known I had a place to go home to. There’s no way to know for sure, but I firmly believe I would have been a different person.

Because of my strong feelings about homeownership, I was extremely pleased with the Federal Housing Administration’s recent decision to increase the range of its mortgage-insurance limits. Our friends at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University tell us that the new FHA limits will put keys in the hands of approximately 380,000 Texas households sooner than would have happened otherwise. Keys to homes those people own.

Some may hear those numbers and say, "Yeah, but at what cost to the rest of the public?" Now, that’s the real surprise–and a pleasant one, too. The higher FHA limits will not cost the government additional money. Not only will they not take money out of taxpayer’s pockets, but, according to FHA Commissioner William Apgar, the FHA will actually return more than $2 billion to the U.S. Treasury for the year 2000. That makes the FHA a rare creature in government these days.

For those of us with the pleasure of helping people realize the dream of homeownership, we can be proud of the work we do. Call me an idealist, but I think that homeownership is at the very core of what makes this a great country.

Intangibles? Maybe so, but they feel very real to me.

Photo by Dennis Fagan.

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