The baffling habits of suburban house buyers

First, it's a "house" not a "home". The word "home" is used by real estate agents to make a house sound better than it is, something that will bond your family if you buy it.

I'll be dissing suburbanites pretty heavy here, mainly because they deserve it.
A large percentage of the housing disaster (foreclosure and such) is owned by suburbia. There's a good reason for this:
suburbanites don't have any money.

let's explore the lifestyle of suburbanites to find out why.

Many suburb parents put their kids on Ritlin because they have Attention Deficit Disorder, which was called "hyperactivity" when I was a kid. Back then, my mom just made me run around the block a couple of times and that usually calmed me down just fine. At school we had two recesses and a long lunch time, and we ran around and played like wild banshees for the entire recess. When we got back to class we were too tired to be hyper. Nowdays the kids just sit around during recess and text their friends or listen to iPods; no wonder they are restless.
And what is wrong with kids learning the art of patience.

Suburban housing is fascinating. Massive houses with tiny little yards. Suburbanites want as much square footage as possible and they are willing to use as much of their lot as they are allowed by city code. Because our society is centered around automobiles, the focus of the front of the house is the driveway and garage. When you drive down the street, you see a row of garages. In older neighborhoods central to the city, houses had front porches and were sized so that the lot had plenty of space. These houses were typically around 1200 feet and large families learned how to live together in this small space. In stark contrast, suburbanites will not buy anything less than 3,000 feet even though they only have 2 brats. What's funny is that these small central houses sell for 3 times what the burb houses go for.

"Two Trees"
Most burb track houses come with two (2) trees in the front yard. I say "tree", but really it is a "stick". They are about 6 feet tall and have a one inch trunk. These can be purchased for around 20 dollars each. The developers put them there only because they have too.
Half of them wind up dying and burbanites never plant anymore.

Another great thing in the burbs are "lawyer foyers". These ridiculous 2 story entries with round tops and massive (and cheap) chandeliers hanging over the $4,000 front door.
A new thing nowadays is the absolute necessity of granite counter tops. they cost a fortune, maybe $60 per foot, but they are now a "must have".

Burb houses are all about show. The front is huge and elegant. the back of the house is usually shitty siding and a crappy sloping roof down to a single story. The back yard is garbage surrounded by a "privacy" fence, essentially a 6 foot tall cedar fence that turns ugly gray within a year or two and then rots in a few years more. This fence is to keep their Ritlin addicts from associating with the neighbors. It is kind of like a prison; God forbid that you might have to actually talk to your neighbor.

And speaking of show, have you ever paid attention to the "Model home" at the front of the subdivision? It looks 10 times better than the track houses that you will be buying. Why?
They don't have a driveway.
Yep, where the driveway normally is, they have rich green manicured grass and two thousand dollars worth of landscaping. So you walk up to the model home and think how incredible your new "home" will be. Your subconscious will not let you see the lack of driveway because that would interfere with you spending 50% of your income on the new "house O' granite tops".
In my opinion this is false advertising to the extreme. Somebody needs to take these people to court. What the model "home" SHOULD show is reality; what your house will really look like.
Concrete driveway, garage door, and a backyard surrounded by the ratty ass fence, a trench of dirt around the perimeter (due to your bored dog running in circles), and a plethora of bright plastic kids toys strewn about.

Another thing about burb houses are their complicated roofs. Old neighborhood central house usually have a simple gable with maybe one extension. Burb houses have ZERO gables because they cost ten dollars more than hip roofs. Hip roofs are ugly but the burbanites could care less; remember, all they care about is granite counter tops, 5 bedrooms, and a plasma.
The "North Dallas Special" is a well known bullshit house with extraordinarily complex roof lines to make it look like a mansion.

Soccer Moms
One of the most ridiculed of all burbanites. Many years ago they all drove minivans, but after years of brutal insults, they all traded up to SUVs, which are the same as minivans except they cost twice as much. Here's an interesting description of a soccer mom:

I became a Soccer Mother.

Soccer Mother. The job spec isn’t great. You have to juggle schedules at a moment’s notice, drive forever, withstand the elements. You have to muzzle up, despite judgment calls that would throw Solomon for a loop. You learn to step over the wreckage at home that builds from chores left undone. And friends start writing instead of phoning because you’re hardly home.

Sooooo, you completely wreck your house and your family because why? So your little kids can play a game. The word "wreckage" is pretty powerful. Decades ago, kids went out and played in the neighborhood with their friends. They got twice the exercise and mommy could stay home in the evenings and keep the wreckage from occuring. When the kids came in, they were exhausted and happy. There was no need for SUVs. most families had a single car, some simple sedan.