I remember three times in my life where my heart literally yearned for something.  One was before I met my husband – I so wanted to meet someone to spend the rest of my life with.  The second was before I had children – it actually hurt to see other pregnant people when I so badly wanted a child of my own.  The third was when we would drive through neighborhoods and see people in their own yards, their own homes and knowing that we had to go back to our apartment to deal with noisy neighbors, hauling laundry to the laundromat, and not being able to own cats or dogs.

With years of saving and a bit of bad luck (a job loss with quick re-employment meant severance pay was available to use for down payment ), we finally realized the dream of home ownership.  We’ve owned two houses in our almost 25 years of marriage.  At this point, I’m thinking that renting sounds pretty sweet when you can walk away from the responsibilities of mowing, painting, insurance, and maintenance issues!

Steve at bripblap has a somwhat similar conclusion,

I know the common perception is that if you own instead of renting there will come a blissful moment when you burn the mortgage documents and skip off into sunset worry-free. In my mind, two things will be happening in 30 years when my mortgage is paid off that will throw a big monkey wrench in those plans.

Steve is talking about property taxes and shoddy construction – two potential long-term hazards of home ownership. It’s the maintenance issues that are killing us!  Painting the soffits and wood rot on our porch columns are the big boo-boo’s of our house right now.  And once repaired, the same problems will be back in 10 years.

I’m thinking owning real estate should be like having kids – it’s meant for the younger generation!