I want a Home, not an Investment

(Today in the Globe and Mail)

I’m back in the Globe and Mail today with a column about my belief that people buy homes, rather than just making investments that will allow them to climb the property ladder to great wealth.

A home, a real home, isn’t an investment: It’s the place for family, the place that you know you can return to when your world falls apart. A home is where you hang your hat, and keep your family photos, and raise your children. It’s where kittens and puppies move in, live their lives under foot, and then pass away. It’s where your future and your past are preserved all around you, and where every room holds a memory.

I’m actually very happy with this column, as was my editor at the Globe and Mail, but what’s fascinating to me are the comments from readers.

An awful lot of people in this country feel the need to argue strenuously that no, people don’t buy a “home,” they are just are investing their savings with the goal of trading up and getting something bigger, and more valuable. And that “real” home-ownership is only about detached single family homes, not about condos.

The other thread through all of this is that the 30% of Canadians who rent their homes only do it because they can’t afford a down-payment to buy a house. Or, more to the point, if not stated explicitly, that they’re renters because they’re too stupid, or too lazy, to afford to buy a house.

It’s interesting that in France, which has roughly the same level of home-ownership as Canada, you don’t find this view that renters are somehow lesser individuals, or less deserving of happiness and respect.

Regardless of all of that, I still believe that nearly every person, whether they rent or buy, does so because they’re seeking a home, and that inevitably they do the things to their abode that makes it their home, reflecting their personality.

I can’t imagine having a house or an apartment, and treating it like a hotel room; just a place to sleep and shower.