Home values aren't what they used to be....

Here is an excerpt from the Washington Post about home values... it is refers to both the social value and the economic value. It is actually a very interesting article (well at least in my opinion... hence why I am posting it). Let me know what you think.


Home Values Are Down, and Not Just at the Bank

By Alexander von Hoffman
Sunday, July 20, 2008; Page B01

"The prospect of possessing one's own house," wrote educator George B. Emerson in 1871, "and that a pleasant one, with a garden and trees, and room for the children to play, in safety, must be a strong motive with any man to regularity, good conduct, and economy."

The way our 19th-century forebears saw it, owning a home could shape and improve your moral character. Reformers such as Emerson believed that the home was "the most sacred place for man and for woman, and especially for children" because it developed the Victorian virtues of "truthfulness, industry, order, frugality, reverence, purity, and self-control."

What would Emerson think today? Global investment banks are failing, and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, created over the years to support that unimpeachable moral right of homeownership, are on the brink. Millions face being tossed out of their condos and cul-de-sacs. Home, that most sacred of places, is under assault. We have strayed so far from what made owning a home an unassailable American value -- the place where mother could serve that apple pie -- that a modern-day Emerson would probably find today's American homeowner an entirely different breed from the virtuous, industrious man of his day.

What happened to the American homeowner? How did the refuge of home become part of the problem?

From the 1830s on, moral reformers argued that the family home was a key to a Christian life. In a crass and stormy world, fathers would carry out the grubby business of earning money, and mothers would make the home a refuge where the family could pray and grow spiritually....


Here is a link to to full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/18/AR2008071802559.html?nav=slate