I am more or less in the thinking that one should own his /her primary residence. My argument is that there are two risks to it: higher mortgage rate and home value decrease. If you take an affordable 30 year fixed, your payment is fixed until you are paying off the house and it greatly reduces your risk. The only risk you can’t avoid is that if you have to for whatever reason sell, you might sell for far less than what you paid for.

I know a family that sold their house in 2000 and became renter because the consecutive double digits increase prior to that. Every year I saw him, I can see the pain in his face and have to hear over and over his argument why the housing can’t go up permanently. From this painful observation, I think it is important to own your primary residence.

I think the risk in the market is for people who over extended themselved. There are two types here too: over extended to get in a primary residence and landlords who own multiple units through over extended leverage. I felt sympathy for the former and disgust for the latter.