greenleaf
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From today's New York Times
January 7, 2010
Men Who Jump the Picket Fence
By MICHAEL TORTORELLO
THE house was an ordinary house: It bore him no malice. Alan Berks knows that now. But back in the spring of 2005, when Mr. Berks, a playwright, and his wife bought the three-bedroom home for $214,000, it often seemed that it was trying to ruin his life.
Alan Berks the renter had spent his evenings with friends at African dance nights and jazz clubs. Alan Berks the homeowner lost an entire day rearranging the living room furniture. “I did find a spot for the couch that made me happy,†he said. “I was proud of myself. But where the couch is — that’s how I’m going to measure my happiness from now on? I remember thinking: ‘This is how people live? Why am I doing this?’ â€
There were other problems, too.
“I couldn’t walk to anything,†said Mr. Berks, 37, who lived in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood, south of downtown Minneapolis. And routine maintenance distracted him from writing. “Why would I have any interest in fixing the bathroom sink?†he said. “I’m in my 30s. If fixing something made me happy, I would have learned how to do it.â€
Mr. Berks’s wife, Leah Cooper, 40, a theater director, initially liked the house. But “I was miserable,†he said, so she came to dislike it, too.
If the couple’s relationship with their home was like a bad love triangle, it was clear which partner needed to go. Eighteen months after moving in, Mr. Berks and his wife took drastic action: They dumped their house (managing to break even), sold almost everything in it, loaded up their Subaru and drove to Honduras for a six-month adventure.
Mr. Berks said he would not recommend that solution to every homeowner. He and his wife are back in Minneapolis now, in a rental in the Uptown neighborhood, within strolling range of restaurants, bookstores and coffee shops. But looking back, he wonders why so many friends encouraged him to buy a house.
“I understand why the government or society wants people to have homes,†he said — they fix them up, and their commitment stabilizes neighborhoods. “I get it, the whole beneficial aspect of homeownership. But individually, I’m not seeing it as a moral good.â€
As it turns out, Mr. Berks is not alone in his disdain. For reasons practical, financial and definitely emotional, there seems to be a growing cohort of men like him who are falling out of love with the holy institution of homeownership.
The numbers behind this disenchantment are only suggestive. Men and women under the age of 40 report roughly equal levels of satisfaction with homeownership, according to a large national study by the Center for Community Capital at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Yet the behavior of single men and women hints at divergent gender attitudes toward homeownership.
Married couples make up the largest group of new home buyers. Next, according to research from the National Association of Realtors, are single women, who in the last 12 months represented 21 percent of home buyers; single men were just 10 percent. That gap has opened up in the last decade, said Paul Bishop, vice president for research at the association.
Mr. Bishop’s survey is silent on the motivation behind the gender split. Younger single men may be more likely to change jobs and cities, he speculates. They may be more willing to squeeze into an apartment with two or three buddies. Or they may be cowering in the nest with Mom and Dad.
Whatever the case, a number of men seem to be newly aware of what economists describe as a peculiarity of homeownership: it has an asset value (as an abstract investment) and a consumption value (as a place to watch VH1 and wash underwear).
“Once upon a time, people bought houses to live in,†said William Clark, a geography professor at UCLA, who has written widely about homeownership. That fairy-tale attitude began to change in the 1970s, Mr. Clark said. And in the housing mania of the last decade, he said, many buyers started to see their homes as speculative investments — high-flying stocks that happened to come with wine cellars and four-car garages.
Today, “with the sudden run-up in foreclosures, you’re starting to see people ask, is housing a good investment?†he said. “In fact, it probably never was.â€
For the first time in a generation, homeowners can look at their dwellings without hearing the distracting jingle of the real estate jackpot. And a number of them, having stepped onto the property ladder just as it was becoming shaky, would very much like to get off.
Men have no monopoly on domestic discontent. There are also women who wish they had signed their mortgage with disappearing ink. But for men, rejecting homeownership may involve broader questions of manhood, said Dr. Roy Baumeister, a psychology professor at Florida State University.
“There are a lot of extra stresses that men have,†he said, a claim he advances in a book to be published in the summer, “Is There Anything Good About Men?†(Short answer: probably.)
In almost every culture, Dr. Baumeister said, “men are expected to produce†more than they consume. In a similar fashion, men naturally compete for status. Buying a home, he said, is often tied up with those pressures.
For 31-year-old Nathan Quevedo, public information officer for the Merced County Office of Education in California, buying a house with his then-wife marked a conscious arrival in adulthood. But that was before the value of his house in Merced dropped by half in just over two years. And before $500 worth of pool pump filters died — ending the swimming season for the foreseeable future. And it was definitely before he and his two young daughters took in a roommate to help pay the bills.
As his relationship with his 1,800-square-foot tract home has gone bad, Mr. Quevedo said, he has started to question his assumptions.
“I had some goals that I had set for myself before I turned 30,†Mr. Quevedo said. “The first one was to be a homeowner. The second one was to make X amount of money. I accomplished those goals. And they were good goals. I don’t fault myself for wanting to have that American dream: a good job, a place to call my own for me and my kids. But I don’t think that homeownership is essential for that anymore.â€
AS a business consultant for start-up ventures, Kirt Greenburg, 41, roams widely from his base in Atlanta. But the frustrations with his 3,300-square-foot colonial revival house, where he lives alone, follow him everywhere. Mr. Greenburg, by his own account, is a “methodical, list-oriented person,†and his laptop is full of spreadsheets that document what’s wrong with the house.
He started his first file in 2002, before he closed on the cedar shake house on a tree-covered acre. The electrical, plumbing and heating systems needed an overhaul; the roof leaked. Mr. Greenburg expected that the repair bill would run $60,000, maybe $70,000. The new Quicken file he clicks open, though, shows he has spent $130,000 (a sum that includes a new kitchen and a complete paint job).
And the place still isn’t fixed to his satisfaction. He clicks on another spreadsheet that tallies the unfinished repairs, room by room. There are closet floors to patch, sand and finish. There’s a basement crawl space to weatherproof. “There have been a lot of times when I haven’t wanted to go home at all,†Mr. Greenburg said. “Because home reminds me of all the things I need to get done. It’s not an escape for me.â€
Looking back, Mr. Greenburg questions why he thought he would want to own such a spacious, high-maintenance home. He grew up with five siblings and enjoyed the noise and hubbub. Yet the home he bought feels silent — so much so that he sometimes doles out rooms to luckless acquaintances who need a place to crash.
His real estate agent described the home as an ideal spot for parties and sit-down dinners. But most of his friends live in condos and apartments across town, where they eat takeout and drop into restaurants, he said.
As a kind of entrepreneurial “nomad†in the 1990s, Mr. Greenburg bounced among eight cities in one five-year span. Recently, he and his newish boyfriend, a French national who has a short-term job in Atlanta, have daydreamed about starting a new business together — in the south of France. Owning a house, he said, “ties me down.â€
“People who are particularly mobile should not be a homeowner because of the high transaction costs†of unloading a house, said Donald Haurin, an economics professor at Ohio State University, who has studied the civic virtues of homeownership. And younger men, he pointed out, tend to relocate more often than young women do. “In economic literature, there’s certainly nothing that says everyone should be a homeowner.â€
Mr. Greenburg has belatedly come to the same conclusion. “I was perfectly content to be in a rental, but I thought it didn’t make financial sense,†he said. After few years of halting gentrification, neighborhood real estate values remain depressed — and depressing. “Now that I’ve sunk in all this money and taken out a mortgage, the main reason it made sense for me is gone,†he said.
....
January 7, 2010
Men Who Jump the Picket Fence
By MICHAEL TORTORELLO
THE house was an ordinary house: It bore him no malice. Alan Berks knows that now. But back in the spring of 2005, when Mr. Berks, a playwright, and his wife bought the three-bedroom home for $214,000, it often seemed that it was trying to ruin his life.
Alan Berks the renter had spent his evenings with friends at African dance nights and jazz clubs. Alan Berks the homeowner lost an entire day rearranging the living room furniture. “I did find a spot for the couch that made me happy,†he said. “I was proud of myself. But where the couch is — that’s how I’m going to measure my happiness from now on? I remember thinking: ‘This is how people live? Why am I doing this?’ â€
There were other problems, too.
“I couldn’t walk to anything,†said Mr. Berks, 37, who lived in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood, south of downtown Minneapolis. And routine maintenance distracted him from writing. “Why would I have any interest in fixing the bathroom sink?†he said. “I’m in my 30s. If fixing something made me happy, I would have learned how to do it.â€
Mr. Berks’s wife, Leah Cooper, 40, a theater director, initially liked the house. But “I was miserable,†he said, so she came to dislike it, too.
If the couple’s relationship with their home was like a bad love triangle, it was clear which partner needed to go. Eighteen months after moving in, Mr. Berks and his wife took drastic action: They dumped their house (managing to break even), sold almost everything in it, loaded up their Subaru and drove to Honduras for a six-month adventure.
Mr. Berks said he would not recommend that solution to every homeowner. He and his wife are back in Minneapolis now, in a rental in the Uptown neighborhood, within strolling range of restaurants, bookstores and coffee shops. But looking back, he wonders why so many friends encouraged him to buy a house.
“I understand why the government or society wants people to have homes,†he said — they fix them up, and their commitment stabilizes neighborhoods. “I get it, the whole beneficial aspect of homeownership. But individually, I’m not seeing it as a moral good.â€
As it turns out, Mr. Berks is not alone in his disdain. For reasons practical, financial and definitely emotional, there seems to be a growing cohort of men like him who are falling out of love with the holy institution of homeownership.
The numbers behind this disenchantment are only suggestive. Men and women under the age of 40 report roughly equal levels of satisfaction with homeownership, according to a large national study by the Center for Community Capital at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Yet the behavior of single men and women hints at divergent gender attitudes toward homeownership.
Married couples make up the largest group of new home buyers. Next, according to research from the National Association of Realtors, are single women, who in the last 12 months represented 21 percent of home buyers; single men were just 10 percent. That gap has opened up in the last decade, said Paul Bishop, vice president for research at the association.
Mr. Bishop’s survey is silent on the motivation behind the gender split. Younger single men may be more likely to change jobs and cities, he speculates. They may be more willing to squeeze into an apartment with two or three buddies. Or they may be cowering in the nest with Mom and Dad.
Whatever the case, a number of men seem to be newly aware of what economists describe as a peculiarity of homeownership: it has an asset value (as an abstract investment) and a consumption value (as a place to watch VH1 and wash underwear).
“Once upon a time, people bought houses to live in,†said William Clark, a geography professor at UCLA, who has written widely about homeownership. That fairy-tale attitude began to change in the 1970s, Mr. Clark said. And in the housing mania of the last decade, he said, many buyers started to see their homes as speculative investments — high-flying stocks that happened to come with wine cellars and four-car garages.
Today, “with the sudden run-up in foreclosures, you’re starting to see people ask, is housing a good investment?†he said. “In fact, it probably never was.â€
For the first time in a generation, homeowners can look at their dwellings without hearing the distracting jingle of the real estate jackpot. And a number of them, having stepped onto the property ladder just as it was becoming shaky, would very much like to get off.
Men have no monopoly on domestic discontent. There are also women who wish they had signed their mortgage with disappearing ink. But for men, rejecting homeownership may involve broader questions of manhood, said Dr. Roy Baumeister, a psychology professor at Florida State University.
“There are a lot of extra stresses that men have,†he said, a claim he advances in a book to be published in the summer, “Is There Anything Good About Men?†(Short answer: probably.)
In almost every culture, Dr. Baumeister said, “men are expected to produce†more than they consume. In a similar fashion, men naturally compete for status. Buying a home, he said, is often tied up with those pressures.
For 31-year-old Nathan Quevedo, public information officer for the Merced County Office of Education in California, buying a house with his then-wife marked a conscious arrival in adulthood. But that was before the value of his house in Merced dropped by half in just over two years. And before $500 worth of pool pump filters died — ending the swimming season for the foreseeable future. And it was definitely before he and his two young daughters took in a roommate to help pay the bills.
As his relationship with his 1,800-square-foot tract home has gone bad, Mr. Quevedo said, he has started to question his assumptions.
“I had some goals that I had set for myself before I turned 30,†Mr. Quevedo said. “The first one was to be a homeowner. The second one was to make X amount of money. I accomplished those goals. And they were good goals. I don’t fault myself for wanting to have that American dream: a good job, a place to call my own for me and my kids. But I don’t think that homeownership is essential for that anymore.â€
AS a business consultant for start-up ventures, Kirt Greenburg, 41, roams widely from his base in Atlanta. But the frustrations with his 3,300-square-foot colonial revival house, where he lives alone, follow him everywhere. Mr. Greenburg, by his own account, is a “methodical, list-oriented person,†and his laptop is full of spreadsheets that document what’s wrong with the house.
He started his first file in 2002, before he closed on the cedar shake house on a tree-covered acre. The electrical, plumbing and heating systems needed an overhaul; the roof leaked. Mr. Greenburg expected that the repair bill would run $60,000, maybe $70,000. The new Quicken file he clicks open, though, shows he has spent $130,000 (a sum that includes a new kitchen and a complete paint job).
And the place still isn’t fixed to his satisfaction. He clicks on another spreadsheet that tallies the unfinished repairs, room by room. There are closet floors to patch, sand and finish. There’s a basement crawl space to weatherproof. “There have been a lot of times when I haven’t wanted to go home at all,†Mr. Greenburg said. “Because home reminds me of all the things I need to get done. It’s not an escape for me.â€
Looking back, Mr. Greenburg questions why he thought he would want to own such a spacious, high-maintenance home. He grew up with five siblings and enjoyed the noise and hubbub. Yet the home he bought feels silent — so much so that he sometimes doles out rooms to luckless acquaintances who need a place to crash.
His real estate agent described the home as an ideal spot for parties and sit-down dinners. But most of his friends live in condos and apartments across town, where they eat takeout and drop into restaurants, he said.
As a kind of entrepreneurial “nomad†in the 1990s, Mr. Greenburg bounced among eight cities in one five-year span. Recently, he and his newish boyfriend, a French national who has a short-term job in Atlanta, have daydreamed about starting a new business together — in the south of France. Owning a house, he said, “ties me down.â€
“People who are particularly mobile should not be a homeowner because of the high transaction costs†of unloading a house, said Donald Haurin, an economics professor at Ohio State University, who has studied the civic virtues of homeownership. And younger men, he pointed out, tend to relocate more often than young women do. “In economic literature, there’s certainly nothing that says everyone should be a homeowner.â€
Mr. Greenburg has belatedly come to the same conclusion. “I was perfectly content to be in a rental, but I thought it didn’t make financial sense,†he said. After few years of halting gentrification, neighborhood real estate values remain depressed — and depressing. “Now that I’ve sunk in all this money and taken out a mortgage, the main reason it made sense for me is gone,†he said.
....
