> I haven't ever attended a loan qualification training seminar so
> maybe people who generally attend these have a greater tendency to think
> this way than is the average for home buyers? Maybe because it was a few
> years ago this has changed?
Most people weren't young families just starting out. Rather, they were mainly in their late 30s and up, about 1/4 of the group were in their late 40s/early 50s. Some of them were only able to qualify with three incomes and everyone needed two incomes to swing an 85-100k mortgage. In the main, then, they weren't people who imagined their careers were going to take off down the road. There were some younger people like me and my partner, but they were only about 20% of the group and none of them imagined making a whole lot more money and weren't in jobs were there was a career ladder to climb.
And, of course, I suspect that a very different market and much easier terms/lower interest rates may have changed things. Which doesn't really change the broader point: thinking of property as an investment is something you have to learn.
Aside: I picked up a gig working for a lefty author, doing research on underemployment/ unemployment. Writing up a report for her, since she has a sense of humor, I wrote, "And, don't forget Dick Cheney's hordes of eBay entrepreneurs who 'make money' auctioning off their stuff to survive. Who knew that the "stuff" George Carlin talked about just didn't accumulate, accumulate, accumulate; it is actually a hedge against economic downturn. Like the $30k worth of Minolos in Carrie Bradshaw's closet, you don't have to let it pile up in the closet--unused!--you can sell it on eBay!" Buy, buy, buy. More, more. more. Now, now, now. (Sorry, this attitude that you are "making money" selling your stuff on eBay just amuses the hell out of me. Hello? You had to buy the stuff first and then you sell it for, usually, a lot less than you paid for it. If a business ran that way.... But, I guess it's an outgrowth of a consumer culture and planned obsolescence, eh?"
Speaking of pop culture and homes/houses, I just read that TLC will have a program which brings old home owners back to their homes after they've been remodeled by the new owners! Now, there's some cultural studies fodder!
> I suggest this because with the two largest purchases most people
> make, home and auto, I have felt that there is a tendency to buy
> primarily with a thought to it's resale value.
If you're low income, you buy what you have the money for and it's usually used or leased. Maybe just a different mindset enabled by higher levels of disposable income? AAR, attempts to get a decent resale out of it aren't about earning money from the resale but mitigating the hit you take down the road, really. It's a way to pay less money in the long run. But, of course, the point is that it all hinges on 'planned obsolescence' since we live in a car culture where people feel impelled to buy every two-three years.
Speaking of the question, "what is property?", I do a shock jock routine where I illustrate the answer by taking someone's pen or sunglass or ball cap or book bag. I do something with it I shouldn't: I put the pen in my bag inside a case full of other pens or pretend to break the glasses or toss the book bag in the trash. The point, of course, is that property is nothing more and nothing less than a set of social relationships defining what we may or may not do with ideas, things, animals, and people.
To illustrate further, I bring in one of those sheets real estate agents give you, instructing you how to make your home more "sellable." What you do, of course, is make sure the home looks as if no one lives there. :)
>It is oversimplifying more than just a bit to say that people are becoming
>temporary custodians of their property and are almost making these
>purchases not for themselves but for the next person who will acquire it
>but that trend does seem real to me.
Well, sure. It's a _trend_, which isn't different from what I was saying. People have to _learn_ how to think of these things as something you invest in with an eye toward resale.
>Not that everything becomes an actual investment but these purchases in
>particular seem to hold resale as a major concern equal to or exceeding
>its actual use value.
I'm not so sure you can easily sep. the two anyway. You say they're doing things to their homes to make them valuable on selling. Well, they're enjoying it now too. If the logic is that it's valuable to _someone else_, why is it not valuable to them. Adding a garage, bath, kitchen, another bedroom -- these are all things we're told make a home more valuable. You supposedly get out of the home what you put into it, acc to real estate agents. If you spend 10k a garage, you should get 10k more for it when you sell. How is that garage something they don't also enjoy right now? I'm living in a rental and, whenever I was asked what I wanted for christmas, I said, "A new frickin' kitchen!" as I hunted down pots, pans, and baking supplies that have to be stashed in oddball places b/c there's no room in the frickin' kitchen.
Now, were I in the position to do so, a kitchen remodel would be a JOY! _and_ it would make the home more valuable. I don't know about the people in your neighborhood, but sometimes people feel more comfortable talking about doing something for something more than pure enjoyment. They also feel the need to say they're also doing it because it's 'practical.' They may say, publicly, I'm not just remodeling the kitchen because I"m a snob who can't bear the harvest gold appliances anymore, even though it's all serviceable. I'm a person who is practical and thinks in terms of the future, planning and strategizing accordingly .... " A kind of Calvinist ethos.....
I think that, if you were to do a more ethnographic study of how they actually _talk_ about their homes/houses, you'll probably find something much more complicated -- the tension of which I spoke, between thinking of something as a home and something as a house.
Kelley