Home Ownership Bad for Your Health

Perhaps those who feel desperate to own a home will take a pause after reading this article from Portfolio. “Homeownership is overrated and… it carries a downside as well as an upside,” they write, based on a study of health and happiness and home ownership among women.

I find little evidence that homeowners are happier by any of the following definitions: life satisfaction, overall mood, overall feeling, general moment-to-moment emotions (i.e., affect) and affect at home. Several factors might be at work: homeowners derive more pain (but no more joy) from both their home and their neighborhood. They are also more likely to be 12 pounds heavier, report lower health status and poorer sleep quality. They tend to spend less time on active leisure or with friends. The average homeowner reports less joy from love and relationships. She is also less likely to consider herself to enjoy being with people…

The great satisfaction from ownership, they say, comes when property values increase. Now that that’s less likely, and in many cases values are decreasing, why buy at all, when you can rent and be happy? “In fact, if Americans could be persuaded that rent payments aren’t ‘wasted money’ and that owning often makes less financial sense than renting, I think the rate of homeownership might, happily, drop substantially.”
Homeownership Makes You Fat and Unhappy [Portfolio]
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