Your Home Is More Than an Asset

But deciding on which stocks to hold in your portfolio is much easier, dare I say, than deciding what to do with your actual residence during this unsettling time.

During that same show, Cramer said that "it might make economic sense for people to walk away from their homes if they borrowed money to buy the homes two years back. If the home has declined in value by 10%, the "smart, right, rational" choice is for homebuyers to walk away from the loans, provided they didn't put any money down.

"Hmmm," I say, while my scratching head.

I'm not so sure about that. So the Booyah Breakdown is going to dwell on your dwelling for a bit.

Home is Where the Heart Is

"There are three very important reasons to own a home," says PeggyAnn McConnochie, the vice president of the National Association of Realtors. It provides your family with shelter, it helps you build equity, and it has big tax advantages.

So unless you're a professional house-flipper (see our previous ), you don't buy a home to trade. You buy it because you want a place to raise your family and keep them safe from the outside world.

OK, sounds corny, I know, but remember, your home is not a stock. Sure, you want to buy low and sell high. But it's not nearly as liquid as your favorite stock. If the price of your home has fallen during this market downturn, odds are good that you will not recoup those losses if you walk away from it right now.

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