The Plight of the Bubble Homeowner

Every time Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum brings up her experience as an L.A. homeowner, I feel oddly comforted: It reminds me that I'm not the only Gen X'er who was finally ready to buy a home in the mid-2000s -- and wound up doing so, despite the crazy bubble prices.

Like Daum, I'm constantly surprised at how much I spent on such a small house. It somehow made sense four years ago, when things were so frenzied that it wasn't uncommon to be outbid by 40 people on a house. Just managing to secure a winning bid felt like an accomplishment -- and was a sign that you better jump on that house, or you may never become a homeowner.

In her latest column, Daum compares that frenzy to quick-fad fashions that eventually fade. That Member's Only jacket that once looked so cool, now seems a little ridiculous:

Many of us who bought property did so with the nagging shame known to customers who pay full price because they're too impatient to wait for a sale. Meanwhile, the smug renters have been living it up in far-nicer homes than they could ever afford to buy.

The subtext of all this is "The Tortoise and the Hare." As we were taught in kindergarten but perhaps forgot by first grade, the race is won patiently and cautiously, not by jumping on a bandwagon. When the real estate market reaches its nadir (how will we know? Maybe when HGTV trades shelter porn for actual porn) the renters -- especially those with money in the bank from well-timed home sales -- will waltz back in and snatch up formerly overvalued homes for rock-bottom prices, thereby joining the ranks of those who bought in the market crash of the early 1990s. The rest of us will remain tragically zipped inside Member's Only jackets that we can't take off without losing a ton of money...

While I'd be lying if I didn't admit that my house often seems like a roller-coaster car making a long, steep plunge into oblivion (the fact that it's approximately the size of a roller-coaster car may have something to do with that), I'm getting a little tired of people insinuating that I was stupid to buy it. No, it's probably not going to double in value in the next decade, and yes, I could probably afford an extra bathroom if I were a renter. But like everyone who bought at the "wrong" time, I had my reasons. Some were better than others, but they had less to do with building my investment portfolio than with building my life.

True there: Of course, had I been thinking about my investment portfolio, I would have bought a house in the late 1990s and made a killing. Instead, I waited until I felt sufficiently "adult": Married, with a kid on the way. But by the time I felt "adult" enough to buy a home, it was 2004, and the bargains were long gone. And at the time, it looked like they'd never return. Of course, even in 2008, I know plenty of people still waiting for the return of those bargains. And waiting.