Logic and reality have been bouncing off my clients’ deflector shields recently on the issue of their houses.  Confronted with the gap between their income and even the payment on a modified loan, I get the refrain, “But keeping the house is the most important thing in my case!”

Yes, and how do you expect to do that?   I get no meaningful answer.

This house business has become so irrational and  embedded that I’m thinking it’s a resistant strain of something. (Is there a strain of “Home Flu”?)   “House” or “home” is like God or motherhood:  a positive one dare not challenge with words about economic reality.

What’s interesting about these reactions is that seldom are we talking about the long standing family home.  We’re talking about houses purchased in the past  five years or so.  Which of course corresponds to the frantic run up in Bay Area home prices.  So these homes were, from the beginning, never likely to be the family seat.

How do I persuade people that a home is simply housing, and what’s really important are the people who live there?