Homeownership is a great thing, Newsweek columnist Robert J. Samuelson admits, but he questions the homeownership ?obsession?:
We think everyone should become a homeowner, when many families can’t or shouldn’t. The result is to encourage lending to weak borrowers who are likely to default. The avid pursuit of a few more percentage points on the homeownership rate (it rose from 64 percent of households in 1994 to 69 percent in 2005) has condoned enormously damaging policies.
When you feel the urge to place blame for the current housing mess, don?t forget government?s propensity for intruding on self-correcting market forces.
For other pearls of wisdom from Samuelson, click here, here, and here.
