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I will buy a house that has many bedrooms. This way, my friends and family can come and stay with me whenever they want for as long as they want. Of course, this means finding someplace scenic, like near a mountain or the ocean. I don't know if any of my friends and family would want to come stay for an extended period of time if I just lived in a suburb.
Buying a house is a frightening thing. There are property taxes to think about, nosy neighbors, a mortage that will outlive me at this point, voting for town/city issues (as if renting has somehow precluded me from the necessary evil of voting).
Renting doesn't feel like an investment. I can't paint, I can't knock down a wall, if something breaks I could replace it myself, but I'm paying the landlord so much a month to take care of the leaky sink. Not like I'd go to the bank holding my mortage and say "Hey, I pay you over half my salary every month, come and take care of those drafty windows will ya'?"
With renting, I could get up and move at any time. Or, the landlord could insist that I get up and move at anytime. How's that supposed to feel stable? I'm not too concerned about the landlord kicking me out though. The apartment across the hall has been empty for over a year now. The landlord is probably just happy to see the check come in every month. Beyond that, he probably feels quite similar to how I feel. "They pay me, I let them live there. How much more investment is needed than that?"
But with house of my own I would probably still shirk my voting duties. It's much nicer to sit on the back porch and admire the scenery than go to a voting booth and try to figure out what exactly will happen if you answer yes to question 2. And those little signs along the side of the road aren't helping me out.


The kind of house I want:

I wish for us a house
built like the chambers of the heart.
Flush with living
the gasp and sluice of doors
always opening
to let one another in.