We adapt to the good parts of home ownership — but not the bad
One strong reason why buying a home doesn’t make us happier has to do with “hedonic adaptation,” which is the idea that after a good thing happens, we experience a momentary increase of positive feelings, but eventually “adapt” and return to a baseline.
“As we start to own a home, we adapt to the experience of owning a home and across time, the joy or happiness from that seems to diminish,” Eppli says.
On the flip side, we tend to have a harder time adapting to financial strain, Carter says. “If owning a home is creating a lot of chronic financial stress for you, that isn’t something that you’re just going to necessarily adapt to,” she says.
“If it means that you have to work much longer hours and you lose time with friends and family members, then you’re not going to adapt to that in a positive way or a negative way,” she says. “It’s just going to be a negative thing ongoing.”
