Europe catches housing bug

Matthew Lynn

Europe has long been an oasis of sanity where people only buy homes to live in them. Not anymore

The British, along with many Americans and most recently the Australians, are all too familiar with the home-ownership obsession. The topic dominates dinner-party conversations: Braggarts boast of the killing they have made on their houses, while the timid or the young worry about how they'll ever afford anything bigger than a shoebox to live in. Now, the French, the Spanish, the Irish and soon maybe even the Germans will be able to play the same game. Europe has long been an oasis of housing sanity. People only bought houses to live in them. They didn't buy them as part of a pension plan,...