Home ownership is part of the American dream, so I shouldn't have been surprised about the outpouring of advice this last year from parent, sibling, friend, and colleague alike. The Talk usually begins with a serious look, and then an admonition: "You're pushing 30, you're finally making decent money but you're still renting. You're throwing money down the drain that you could be putting into a mortgage payment. Isn't it about time for you to buy a house?"

They mean well and it's possible they're even right. Maybe there is some sort of Platonic ideal time for a person to buy a house, and maybe I've reached that happy state. But it seems unlikely. Several people have tried to sell me on the idea, even though their own homes have recently lost fifty or even a hundred thousand dollars worth of value in a matter of months. It's still a "good investment" for the long term.

People are buying more than just the house. They're buying into a vision of what the rest of their lives should look like.

I'm tempted to ask, "A good investment for whom?" Home loan payments are usually structured so lenders get double their money back over a 30 year period. So a $300,000 house with a minimal down payment will cost you $600,000. The interest is deductible from your taxes but it still seems a hefty price to pay.

There are other downsides. I may be flushing money down the drain every month, year after year, but it's a lot less money than colleagues are spending on mortgage payments, property taxes, and upkeep. Because they have to spend a large percentage of their incomes on the house, they're more likely to experience financial crunches.

One of the great benefits of cheap rent for me is absolutely no debt. Freedom from debt means freedom to travel, leave annoying jobs, be a bit more choosy about the projects one accepts—freedom that would vanish in a cloud of red ink the minute I bought a house.

Besides, it’s hard to know what to do with a house. I am not the fixer-upper type, so remodeling it for resale would be out of the question even if the housing market were still roaring. Living in it all alone might be somebody’s idea of bliss, but not mine, and I am not a dog person.

Whenever I raise the living alone objection, the advice-givers suggest a compromise: I should buy a house, live in one room, rent the others out. Which is to say: Become a landlord, with all the legal hassles, maintenance costs, and personal drama that entails. Thanks but no thanks.

Living alone might be somebody’s idea of bliss, but not mine, and I am not a dog person.

People aren't crazy to buy houses but they're buying more than just the house, even if these days they use investment-speak to justify the decision. They're buying into a vision of what the rest of their lives should look like. They are deciding to take one little piece of the world and make it their own, at great cost; to finally put down "roots"; to trade some of their freedom for security, routine, and purpose.

There's nothing wrong with that trade-off, but shouldn’t there be a reason for it? The thing that used to drive people to do this was family: You bought a house to make a home. As twenty- and thirtysomethings wait longer to get married and have children, folks tell us to buy a house anyway, because… that’s the sort of thing people our age should do. It’s not very persuasive.

Jeremy Lott is the Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He rents a townhouse in Fairfax, Virginia.