House Lust: America's Obsession With Our Homes [Hardcover]

Daniel McGinn (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 8, 2008

A rich narrative that blends social commentary with incisive reporting, House Lust offers an astute, funny, and sometimes disturbing portrait of the behaviors that drove the greatest real estate boom in history—and its eventual bust.

Owning a home has long been considered the fulfillment of the American Dream. But in the last decade, as the real estate market boomed, Americans’ fascination with homes turned into a frenzy. Everywhere we turned, people were talking about, scheming over, envying, shopping for, refinancing, or just plain ogling houses—in the process, we’ve transformed shelter from a basic necessity into an all-consuming passion.

In House Lust, Newsweek’s Daniel McGinn travels the country to explore the roots of this mania. Even as the real estate boom has turned to bust, Americans remain obsessed with houses—many of us are still trading up, adding on, or doubling down to buy vacation property. But for others, this zeal for housing has carried a painful price, one that’s evident in the soaring foreclosure rates and mounting despair as millions of homeowners (and their lenders) realize they’ve stretched too far to buy the home of their dreams.

In a compelling narrative that takes us inside the homes—and psyches—of the House Lust–afflicted throughout the nation, McGinn examines the forces that turned housing into the talk of dinner parties. He explores the arms race for square footage and introduces readers to a menagerie of characters from the real estate world—from “renovation psychologists” who treat remodeling-addled clients to a guy who trades vacation time-shares the way kids trade baseball cards. McGinn also jumps into the fray himself by enrolling in real estate school and buying an investment property, sight unseen, over the Internet.

House Lust shows us just how contagious the ideal of owning the best home on the block can be. And as the real estate boom recedes into memory, McGinn offers cautionary tales to help us curb our lust when prices start rising again.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Despite the current downturn in the housing market, the country's mania for homes that exploded during the last half-decade is still alive and well, according to Newsweek writer McGinn. The fascination with homes—talking about, valuing, scheming over, envying, shopping for, refinancing, or just plain ogling homes—has continued even after the market has cooled, McGinn argues, and can be seen in the ongoing popularity of HGTV, the 24-7 real estate and home improvement cable channel and its flagship show, House Hunters. To prove his thesis, McGinn entertainingly explores the gamut of housing obsessions, from buying personally designed and oversized trophy homes, attempting large-scale renovations and spending obscene amounts of time on real estate Web sites such as Zillow and PropertyShark to actually going out and getting a real estate license, which McGinn himself does after only minimal training. It is this ability to get inside the actual lives of the housing-obsessed rather that relying purely on statistics to prove his point that makes this book as enjoyable as an episode of Flip This House, another popular housing reality show that McGinn cites in a book that is, at heart, all about behavior, not economics. (Dec. 26)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Praise for HOUSE LUST
"House Lust remains relevant in spite of the bust because, by and large, people will never stop jonesing to keep up with the Joneses."--USA Today

"[House Lust] raises provocative questions that strike at the covetous soul of America’s culture and economy."--The New York Times

"[House Lust] is a witty survey of the world of buying, selling, and gossiping about homes."--The Wall Street Journal

"Daniel McGinn examines what drove history's greatest real estate boom with insightful, often amusing, anecdotes."--The New York Post

"To understand this overweening desire for residential improvement, McGinn takes a humorous journey across the country... it's obvious McGinn has done his homework." --The Seattle Times

"[House Lust] has been something of an instant hit."--The Worcester Telegram & Gazette

"McGinn writes like a social historian, albeit one with an impish curiosity and willingness to follow each thread to the end... House Lust is a good-humored and entertaining first book."--The Real Deal

"A highly-readable... snapshot album of 21st century American Life."--Kirkus

"It is [McGinn's] ability to get inside the actual lives of the housing-obsessed rather than relying purely on statistics to prove his point that makes this book as enjoyable as an episode of Flip This House."--Publishers Weekly

"After an odyssey that brought him in contact with every aspect of the housing boom, Daniel McGinn gives a deep sense of the spirit of our times--the Zeitgeist--and an understanding how this boom has led to our current economic problems."---ROBERT SHILLER, author, Irrational Exuberance

“The best part of this smart, entertaining book is that while you're laughing at other people's excesses, you're simultaneously calculating how much it would cost to do a renovation like theirs.”---JOEL STEIN, columnist, Time Magazine

“Hot properties, hypnotic home shows, and hysterical American homeowners – HOUSE LUST has it all. Daniel McGinn has written an insightful, comical read for the real estate junkie in all of us.”---ALEX McLEOD, original host, “Trading Spaces”

"A satisfying fix for anyone suffering from REAS--that's ‘Real Estate Addiction Syndrome,’ of course."---MICHAEL GROSS, author, 740 Park

"Every social gathering may end as a gabfest on real estate, but no one is as entertaining, informative, or knowledgeable about why we love our homes--and how the building industry makes use of our passions--as Daniel McGinn. HOUSE LUST is like a cocktail party without the hangover.”—STEVEN LEVY, author, The Perfect Thing

“It's Tracy Kidder-meets-Freakonomics as Daniel McGinn wryly explains our national obsession, profiling a cast of quirky characters along the way. HOUSE LUST is required reading in boom or bust."---ALISON ROGERS, author, Diary of a Real Estate Rookie

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Crown Business (January 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038551929X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385519298
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #224,665 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Faster, Higher, Stronger... January 8, 2008

By Zoyd

Format:Hardcover

It seems that whatever Americans get into these days, it turns into a weirdly competitive sport for them: whether you buy a new car, TV, BBQ, whatever, the Olympic motto applies: faster, higher, stronger... So it's not surprising that the same is true when it comes to real estate, but the mind still boggles at the kind of insanities people come up with to create what they believe to be their dream home. (I mean, how many bathrooms could you possibly need in a house?) That's what HOUSE LUST is about - it's a great and entertaining piece of reportage that takes you across America and in the course of which you'll meet all kinds of crazy people with grand designs for their homes, designs that are often as remarkable as they are ludicrous. But what makes the book even better is that while it's ostensibly about America's obsession with real estate, the author, Daniel McGinn, is also smart enough to see this as a symptom of a deeper problem: that we still seem to think that size matters.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A personal, revealing look at how important our homes have become .... January 11, 2008

By npjutr

Format:Hardcover

Given the recent burst of the housing bubble I found this book to be particularly relevant. It examines the factors that have contributed to our fascination with our homes - in some cases to extremes that are both comedic and really sad - from a perspective that is informative, personal, and fun. It should make homeowner or want-to be homeowners like myself examine his or her priorities and behaviors more closely before making life-altering decisions.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of FUN and also Educational June 11, 2008

By Tucker Andersen VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I really enjoyed this book. It is extremely easy to read, has adequate footnotes for those who want to further explore any of the topics which the author covers, and in my opinion it incredibly accurately captures the fascination/interest/obsession (and yes, even lust) of many of us have for all aspects of activity regarding our homes (and those of our neighbors and even strangers). Whatever the reason (idle curiosity, planning a move, determination of the value of your own home, interest in renovations), if you often peruse the weekly real estate section of your local paper, visit open houses just for the heck of it, often mentally decide how you would renovate or redecorate a home that you are visiting, can't resist checking out the neighborhoods where you vacation with the thought that it might be nice to have your own getaway abode there, or have graduated from watching THIS OLD HOUSE on PBS to being able to recite from memory the most watched shows on HGTV, this book is definitely for you.

Dan McGInn is a national correspondent for Newsweek. He has spent several years covering many aspects of the real estate boom that eventually assumed bubble type characteristics and is now undergoing the inevitable hangover of a correction, which will hopefully not morph into a crash. The tone and style of the book is illustrated by his examination of the traditional competition and envy (not confined to real estate), which he describes in his opening chapter about the Toll Brothers' subdivision in Potomac Maryland, aptly titled "Mine's Bigger than Yours". Other randomly selected chapters include commentary on such topics as "Fix-up Fever", the seemingly favorite neighborhood pasttime in some communities of remodeling cum expansion, and the whole mystique of often little used vacation homes that are usually very uneconomic investments despite their frequent justification on that basis. Included in that discussion is a very interesting overview of the operation of the timeshare industry for the uninformed such as myself, as well as the recently introduced luxury vacation option known as destination clubs (as epitomized by Exclusive Resorts, the largest).

McGinn has a keen eye and an engaging style; as the title of my review states, I not only found a lot of educational material (admittedly much anecdotal, but a lot of hard facts as well), but I also really had fun reading this book (as it appeared that he did writing it). So if you are a chronic addict with HOUSE LUST that cannot be cured, you will probably relate to much of the material in this book. But even for the more casual hobbyist (who can change the dial and for whom HOUSE HUNTERS is not "appointment television"), the new terminology alone to which you are introduced is worth the time and price of the book. One example - in Las Vegas a new home is as much a status symbol as a new car, and what is in other parts of the country simply considered an existing home being sold is for many individuals in that area a "used home" which carries as much of a second hand stigma as a used car. Other interesting topics include the monogamous vs. polygamist vacationers (as well as "staycationers"), renovation hell, home location "splitters", the risqué practice of "house humping' (I had no clue), as well as lots of insider lingo and shorthand.

He also touches on the topic of how technological innovations are changing both our lifestyles and our homes, and has a fascinating compilation of statistics regarding the growth in size of our residences over the past few decades. Finally, to complete his research he takes the local exam to obtain his real estate license and provides some insights into the profession of realtor as well.

My goal in writing this review has been to provide an intriguing overview of how successful McGinn has been in capturing in an extremely entertaining manner the quest surrounding what for many Americans is a (and perhaps the) central element of their pursuit of the American Dream, a home of their own (and then- the renovations and subsequent additions, and later a vacation home, etc., etc.) I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.