Those of you with some experience in the process of buying a home are likely familiar with the various complications and pitfalls that can await aspiring homeowners, particularly first-time buyers. There are many factors to consider and most people need some help to ensure they’re making the best deal possible. But it can also be a very rewarding experience. It’s part of the American dream. That’s why I was a bit taken aback when I saw this article from Jerusalem Demsas at the liberal outlet The Atlantic. The original title which I noticed while browsing through Memeorandum was “Don’t Buy a Home. (Ever).” The final title at the host’s website was a bit more tame, reading, “The Homeownership Society Was a Mistake.” The author speaks of “the mythos that accompanies the American institution of homeownership.” Since part of my job is to read long-winded articles on obscure topics so you don’t have to, I decided to take a look. I’ll give you a moment to look over this brief excerpt first and let you try to guess one of the reasons you shouldn’t own a home.

The consensus that homeownership is preferable to renting obscures quite a few rotten truths: about when homeownership doesn’t work out, about whom it doesn’t work out for, and that its gains for some are predicated on losses for others. Speaking in averages masks the heterogeneity of the homeownership experience. For many people, homeownership is a largely beneficial enterprise, but for others, particularly young, middle-income and low-income families as well as Black people, it can be risky.

This critique isn’t new (not even at this magazine); in fact way back in 1945, the sociologist John Dean summed up many of my concerns in this quote from his book Homeownership: Is It Sound?: “For some families some houses represent wise buys, but a culture and real estate industry that give blanket endorsement to ownership fail to indicate which families and which houses.” This is my central critique: At the margin, pushing more people into homeownership actually undermines our ability to improve housing outcomes for all, and crucially, it doesn’t even consistently deliver on ownership’s core promise of providing financial security.

If you were able to guess without even reading the excerpt that the answer to my question above was “because it makes you a racist,” give yourself a cookie. That’s absolutely not the crux of the entire piece, but it does include a number of observations along those lines. Demsas points out that a “home’s value is directly tied to the scarcity of housing for other people. This system by its nature pits incumbents against newcomers.” It is also pointed out that appreciating real estate values tend to lock others out of the market, particularly the less affluent. And, again, they tend to be disproportionately from communities of color. In fact, the final section of the article which runs for thirteen paragraphs is titled, “Inequality is Inevitable.”

But to be fair to the author, she does touch on a number of points that can serve as important considerations for those considering the purchase of their first home. There are definitely some people for whom a house and a mortgage may not turn out to be the best deal, or at least not as good of a deal as for others. Particularly for younger people in the early stages of their careers, you need to ask yourself how long you think your current job will last or how long you want to stay there. (Assuming you’re not a telecommuter.) If that job ends, will you be likely to find another, hopefully better one within a reasonable commuting range of your property?

If not, you may be forced to sell your house before you’ve built up any significant equity in it. (If you only make the base payments every month, because of the way most home mortgages are amortized, you will own virtually none of it after five years or even longer. Almost all the money goes toward the interest collected by the lender.) This could leave you in a bind, particularly if you need to move quickly and end up selling the house for less than you paid for it.

But if you are generally a disciplined individual and can find a way to put aside some extra money to pay down the loan principal, particularly in the early years, it can work out very well. My wife and I began the process within a year of marrying and made all of those early, extra payments as often as we could. As a result, we paid off the house well ahead of schedule and now hold the deed ourselves. It’s a great feeling.

But even if you don’t stay and make your house your “forever home,” you will still have something in your pocket when you have to move. Compare that to renting. No matter how long you stay in an apartment, you will own precisely nothing of that property when you leave. You’ll just go to another similar place and start all over again. Yes, there are risks involved in buying a home, but they can be worth it for many people, so don’t let the doomsayers scare you off.