America's House Party

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The boom has wrought less violent changes too--most likely in your house. Maybe you're like Mike Oakley, 43, who has poured $100,000 into redecorating his Chicago house, figuring it is already worth $150,000 more than when he bought it. "Rather than invest in stocks," Oakley says, "invest money in your home." Or maybe you're a renter, paging longingly through listings of ever more unaffordable real estate, praying for a housing-market bust to wipe the smug smile off the face of your brother-in-law, whose house has doubled in value. Or maybe you're counting on refinancing and taking out some cash to put your kids through college. Or maybe you spend an unseemly amount of time looking at classifieds to guess how much your house is worth and surfing websites like domania.com and propertyshark.com to find out what your friends and neighbors paid for theirs. (O.K., that would be, ahem, me.)

Some economists believe that housing lifted the economy after the tech crash. And some, worried that it could take the economy right back down, warn of a bubble in home prices driven by the same psychology of greed as the tech one. Even Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan--often credited with godfathering the home boom with low interest rates--cautions about "froth" in the market, recalling the "irrational exuberance" of yesteryear.

But who wants to listen to buzz-kill talk? Just as during the 1990s' stock frenzy, the idea that "everybody's getting rich" echoes in a vast media chamber. Joining TV mega-hit Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, HGTV's Designed to Sell and A&E's Sell This House teach you how to unload your home for top dollar. Making its debut this month, TLC's Property Ladder will focus on fixing up houses--not to live in but to flip. Business and personal-finance magazines that once touted tech stocks now promise tips on how to grab land and cash in. Books like the best seller Rich Dad, Poor Dad laud real estate investing as the ticket out of the rat race.

The boom is as much an emotional story as an economic one. It's about the excitement of potential wealth, the fear of missing out and the envy toward the guy next door who bought for a third of what you paid. It's about the giddy tabulation of how many plasma TVs your house's appreciation could buy and the embarrassment of feeling too poor for your neighborhood as houses around you are torn down for McMansions. If home is where the heart is, it is now where ever more of your cash is. And when love and money collide, things can get a little crazy.

• THE GOLD DIGGERS OF '05

You shouldn't get the impression that you can make six figures in real estate by snapping your fingers. Just ask Max Kaiser. It once took him a whole hour. The South Florida real estate investor bought a Miami-area two-bedroom luxury condo--which had not yet been built--for $425,000 last year. After signing the purchase papers, Kaiser, 32, heard that a couple outside the developer's office was interested in the same apartment. So he sold it to them on the spot for $525,000. "I heard it's now going for $570,000, but what can you do?" he says. Don't cry for Kaiser. Four years ago, he was an accountant, stultified by his job. Now he's pricing Porsche Carreras.