The United States continues to be mired in a housing slump, a hangover driven by pandemic-fueled market anomalies and once historically low interest rates now remaining stubbornly elevated in contrast to a few years ago.

In shirt-sleeve English, fewer people are moving from one house to another. This might be a challenging reality for those wanting to sell and equally frustrating for people eager to buy. But what if this isn’t such a bad thing for most everyone else? I have several friends who are agents and others in the mortgage business, but what if a real estate downturn actually has an upside to it?

I spent my entire childhood in the same century-old house my parents purchased in 1964. Twice a year, at Christmas and Easter, we took a family photo in front of the red brick, wood-burning fireplace in the living room. Our burner on the fritz, it’s the fireplace we huddled in front of during an ice storm in 1975. It’s the one we popped popcorn in, the same one our father tossed logs about to make it look like Santa Claus had come crashing down our chimney on Christmas Eve. It’s the same fireplace on whose mantle our parents displayed birthday cards or gifts we made for them. Every May, our dad cut lilacs from the yard and filled a big wooden bucket on the hearth.

It was Emerson who wrote, “A house is made of bricks and beams. A home is made of hopes and dreams.” There is a compounding benefit to staying in your home for a long period of time and it’s not just financial. You grow with it and the memories pile up inside and out.

After my mother died and my father expressed a desire to move in with us, we debated whether it made sense to find a new house to better accommodate a multi-generational family or renovate and add on to our existing one. We chose the latter.

We reached out to our friend, Lain Chappell. Lain is owner of Shea Chappell Homes. He helped us reimagine existing space, add a room and convert a portion of our deck. My father happily spent his last four years with us. He passed away peacefully in front of the same big window he and Lain had specifically planned to maximize sunset views from his chair.

In a throwaway society, renovating and rehabilitating the old can be countercultural. Rather than looking for greener grass somewhere else, cultivating, reseeding, and fertilizing your lawn has its benefits.

Another upside to a down real estate market is the opportunity to better know your neighbors. Debbie, who lives to the east next door, is a retired postal carrier and has been on the street for over 30 years. She loves the Broncos and Nuggets. To our west are Ken and Jean, who have been here almost as long. Ken was a decorated WWII fighter pilot. Across the street are Jennifer and Mike, fellow Notre Dame fans who lovingly host exchange students. One house over are Norm and Laurie, here well over 20 years. Norm can fix anything and has taught our sons all kinds of science and carpentry tricks of the trade.

We buy houses but we make them our home. We’ve been in ours going on 16 years. That’s nearly 6,000 glorious days filled with tears and laughter and the loud hollering of boys, one dog jumping out the front window and another one jumping out a second-story back window onto a pergola during a thunderstorm. We brought a new baby home here, graduated another from high school and college, and survived a barbeque propane tank explosion on the deck, one Father’s Day.

I’m not sure we’ll live here forever, but the memories we’ve made as a family will last a lifetime.

When we took the biannual family photo in front of the fireplace as a child, we always stood in the same positions – my three oldest brothers in the back and my sister and me in front. Over the years, we grew taller, but the fireplace remained the same. When our parents sold the house in 2009, we took one last picture. Our eyes were red from the tears.

Housing news understandably focuses on the economics and financial values of the real estate market, but the true lasting value of a house is centered on what happens within its hallowed walls.

Paul J. Batura is a local writer and founder of the 4:8 Media Network. He can be reached via email Paul@PaulBatura.com or on X @PaulBatura.