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Are you a forever renter?

I fear I might end up being that. Emily Badger, in the Atlantic, on how she and her husband are dying to buy a house, but…: We have trouble thinking beyond the nearest horizon, not because we don’t like the idea of commitment, but because we want to be free to theoretically commit to anything […]

I fear I might end up being that. Emily Badger, in the Atlantic, on how she and her husband are dying to buy a house, but…:

We have trouble thinking beyond the nearest horizon, not because we don’t like the idea of commitment, but because we want to be free to theoretically commit to anything that may come up tomorrow. What if an incredible job offer wants to relocate us to Riyadh? What if we wake up Saturday morning and decide that we’ve tired of Washington, D.C.? What if – as many of our friends have experienced – one of us loses a job?

… In this way, we are the quintessential young professionals of the new economy – restless knowledge workers who deal in “projects,” not “careers,” who can no sooner commit to a mortgage than we can a lifetime of desk work. Our attitude is a national epidemic. It’s harder to get a mortgage today than it was 10 years ago. But a lot of people also just don’t want one any more. At the height of the housing boom, 69 percent of American households owned their homes. Housing researcher Arthur Nelson predicted to me that number would fall to 62 percent by 2020, meaning every residence built between now and then will need to be a rental.

I haven’t been able to figure out in my own household, however, how this aversion to permanence can coexist with our rising ire about renting. And I don’t know how whole cities will accommodate this new demographic: the middle-class forever renter.

See, that’s weird, because Julie and I just the opposite: we have a deep attraction to permanence — we are sick of moving — and an abject fear of owning another house. I can’t stress strongly enough how anxiety-producing it is not to be able to sell your house, or to face selling it at a significant loss. This economic downturn has made me pessimistic about ever having a permanent job again. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. The idea of geographical security — that is, being able to stay in one place forever — is something we very much welcome at this point in our lives. But who can count on that, especially in my line of work?

Badger writes that she and her husband find it undignified not to be able to decorate and remodel in their house, or get a dog (their landlord won’t let them have one), or do the other ordinary things that come with home ownership. I know that feeling. But what she’s not thinking about is the significant costs of repairs and upkeep, especially if she buys a historic house, as we did. Still, I’d certainly be willing to own another home, but the fear of it ruining us financially is strong.

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