AsiaLIFE

Will discovers that despite the global downturn, finding that perfect home in America is not as sweet as it might be.

My wife and I packed up and left Cambodia to move to the United States — the land of opportunity, freedom and apple pie — so my wife could attend college, our son could enjoy the fruits of American civilisation and I could enjoy not being a minority.

The thing that we didn't know as we stepped off the plane on that warm summer evening in 2006 was that years of frenzied financial wheeling and dealing in the housing market were peaking. No one had any idea that the resulting “correction” – a cold and unassuming word favoured by economists – would be the worst recession in a generation, or three generations depending on what indicators you prefer.

We had found our way to rich America, but at the poor end of the scale. Cambodians often refuse to believe that life can be difficult in the U.S. In Cambodia, it is rumoured that the U.S. government sends its residents a check every month. While refugees might receive such benefits, the monthly checks were not forthcoming for us. As the mighty titans of America's news media folded, announced massive layoffs or cut hours like a coconut seller, being a journalist went from a middling income to tenuous. We ended up living in a cheap apartment complex almost completely occupied by itinerant farm workers. It's the kind of neighbourhood where everyone speaks Spanish, where the signs are in Spanish, where the door-to-door salesmen cannot speak of word of English — not that this deters them. So once again, I stand out as being one of a few big white guys lumbering around the neighbourhood.

Right Time to Buy?

However, this whole economic debacle was triggered by collapsing real estate prices, so shouldn't this be a great time to buy a home? I enjoyed my years of roaming the world, but marriage and the joyful, crushing burden of a child inspires a longing for homeownership – that grand American ideal that, according to some, plunged the world into financial ruin and turned back 20 years of economic development. My wife and I, eager potential first-time homebuyers, have little hope. Even in the midst of a terrible slump, the median house price in Oregon is six to eight times my income. The cheapest houses are still far from affordable for us, and often lack important features like garages, foundations or proximity to anything. One house I took a look at in 2006 was, as they say in Cambodia, italicised. It was visibly listing toward the street, and the asking price was still six times my annual pay.

One advantage of working at a daily newspaper (besides the low pay and bizarre hours) is having access to the classified section of the paper hours before the subscribers. If you worked at a newspaper that was distributed to readers in the afternoon, you could get your hands on early editions by noon. That meant a perfect head start on snapping up all sorts of stuff people were trying to sell, from houses to hamsters. At least that was an advantage before the advent of Craig's List, eBay and a bajillion other websites offering cheaper, more effective ways to sell your junk. Now, it appears that I will tell my son of the wonders of poring over soy-based ink and recycled newsprint in much the same way my mother describes collecting eggs from the chicken coop during her youth on the family farm in Nebraska.

While I've lost any edge on the news cycle, there's always one option my wife reminds me of. On the east bank of the Mekong near Kratie, my wife's grandmother's traditional wooden house — built when Cambodia was still a colony of world empire and indoor plumbing was a new-fangled invention — stands empty. It's her inheritance, she says, and we can move there any time.

Free is a price we can afford. And being a century old it's probably in better condition than many overpriced houses in the U.S.

Will Koenig is a journalist in Oregon, where he lives with his wife and son. Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it