Am I House-Poor or Just American?: A Comedic Field Guide to Not Owning Anything

There comes a moment in the life of every American adult when the housing market stops being background noise and becomes a personality, a topic, and a diagnosis. You are at a dinner party, someone announces they just closed on a house, and you clap your hands together and say congratulations while your chest does a small piece of arithmetic. This comedic field guide is built around 1 question, am I house poor, meaning am I spending most of my income on housing, or am I just American, meaning am I experiencing the same financial squeeze that has united an entire country in shared bewilderment. The 2 conditions look identical from the outside, which is the source of all the confusion, all the shame, and all the comedy.

A person who bought too much house and a person who simply tried to live in the United States both wake up broke on the first of the month. With the tenderness of a therapist and the receipts of an auditor, this book walks you through every stage of the modern housing experience, the short history of being house poor, the diagnostic that tells you which camp you are in, the rent versus buy equation nobody ever finishes, how to fall in love with a mortgage, the down payment and the Bank of Mom and Dad, closing costs and other fun surprises, the property tax shuffle, the HOA and the war on grass, home insurance and the fine print you do not read, the maintenance tax, the Federal Reserve and your fixed rate, and bidding wars that turn real estate into the hunger games.

You will also explore house hacking and other fantasy football, and you will learn whether your situation is a personal failure you can fix with a spreadsheet or a national condition you can only fix with a movement. The answer, promised at the start, is a relief. Funny, sharp, and shockingly informative, this book will change the way you look at every open house you ever attend and make you laugh at the one thing every American shares, the monthly statement that arrives no matter what.