Effects of housing crash still linger

Timing is everything.

I met my future wife a few months after moving to Gainesville in 2005. We soon knew we wanted to be together. By the next year, we were looking for a place to live together.

Housing prices had been rising like a rocket, but buying a home still seemed like a good investment. After all, we kept being told, the increase in prices might slow but the worst we could do is break even when the place was sold.

The rest, as they say, is history. We purchased a place when real-estate prices were at their peak, and then watched it lose more than half of its value after the housing crash. The modest townhouse that initially brought us so much pride became a prison, locking us into a location outside of city limits without enough space to fit our growing family.

Programs established to assist those affected by the crash were no help. They were aimed at those being foreclosed on, not people underwater but still making mortgage payments. After several years, the bank finally agreed to a short sale — but we had to pay a significant chunk of change for the privilege of unloading the place.

Now we’re renters again, and happier about our living arrangements. The place is big enough for us and our two kids, and within the city so it’s easier to get to work and things to do. Besides, we can barely change a light bulb, so it’s nice being able to call the owner if there are problems we can’t fix.

We’re hardly alone in trading home ownership for renting. The U.S. home ownership rate fell to its lowest level in more than 50 years, according to a Census report released last month.

Much has been made of millennials contributing to the decline, due to student debt and economic factors causing them to delay marriage and parenthood. But Gen Xers like myself took the biggest hit. Home ownership among those aged 35-54 has seen the biggest drop of any age group since 1993, according to a Harvard University report last year.

While millennials have time to enter the housing market, the situation is more dire for Generation X. The effect of the crash on their credit and rising rental rates on their savings make it harder to become home owners again.

There are no easy solutions. If we’ve learned anything from the crash, it’s that efforts to encourage home ownership can have unintended consequences. Generation X already faces the prospect of Social Security funding not meeting obligations unless changes are made, so having our prime home ownership years cut short will further complicate our retirements.

These kind of issues should be front and center in the presidential campaign. Instead we get vague promises about returning America to greatness and unrealistic pledges about paying for new programs without making any sacrifices.

I guess timing is everything when it comes to relationships, real estate and politics. A few years after the housing crash, our politicians have moved on to other concerns. But for those of us who experienced it first hand, we won’t forget as it affects our lives for years to come.

— Nathan Crabbe is The Sun’s opinion and engagement editor.