American Dream

 A typical middle-class house

I was walking through the neighbourhood today looking at the residential houses. The houses in the area we live are very middle class: not exactly ranch style but not MacMansions either. In fact I was surprised to find out that lots of them are no bigger than an apartment we live in. I could not see backyards but the general impression was that nobody had a vegetable garden there. The lawns were barely cared for and there was not a hint of individuality: all pretty much generic houses. All have lawns in the front yard and garages. Very few have just an empty lot - no grass.

Anyway, it got me thinking. A few decades ago owning your own house was called an American dream. And this is an interesting cultural phenomenon, we don't hear, for example, about a Chinese dream or Italian dream. Yet everybody knows what an American dream is. America is not the only country where you can buy a house though admittedly more people live in their own houses than in other countries.

 A typical MacMansion

But if we look at it closer, what shall we see. Like I mentioned before, lots of them are not that bigger than an apartments. You have to pay for everything like maintenance and repairs. And the main reason: why do so many people want 30 years mortgage? The word mortgage means "an agreement to death". They end up paying much more than this agreement is. I personally think that the average house is just not worth the asking price but than I am not the best judge of it.

Robert Kiyosaki in his excellent book Rich Dad Poor Dad explained that house is actually a liability and not an asset like most people are led to believe. A banker actually said that "now is the time to buy". She said that while the country is still in economic recession!

 A house in a prosperous neighbourhood

We had a chat with one of the residents who put his house for rent. He said that he commuted to Riverside while his wife commuted to Carlsbad. Both towns are at least 60 miles away from Temecula! Commuting 60 miles a day is not my idea of fun. For the last 2 year I had to commute 7 miles and I got fed up with it. let's see 60 miles commute is at least 2 hours every day you are not get paid for. Add 8 hours of work and we have 10. Looks like they just have enough time in their house to sleep before they go back to work. All this wasted hours so they could have a house in the "country". A dram fulfilled?

I don't think so.