My friend, Steve Haas, wrote this great article for me back in November about leasing vs buying. I kind of sat on it. A lot. I sat on it for over 3 months because I had this gut feeling that I couldn’t quite place and I didn’t discuss with Steve until today because I am not criticizing what he wrote but in this economic snapshot we are all trying to place ourselves in, it seemed familiar, old school and maybe like we were dating ourselves a bit to believe that we actually live in a time when buying a house and leasing a car was the secret sauce to being a responsible adult.

Oh, how fast this has changed in a mere few months! Granted, I think this was coming for a while but the onset of reality- traditional financing and planning has organically shifted to be a whole new beast which we must all learn- is truly making me think of cars and houses in an entirely new way.

It may have been a Porsche dealer tapdancing the concept of “Buy a house, lease your car” a couple of weeks back to me (as a writer, not a buyer) over a beautiful Boxster leasing for $329 a month in a deserted, sparkling new showroom that made me start thinking about this old cliche. It probably didn’t help matters when several friends decided to put their homes on the market almost on an emergency schedule a few days later so they could sell and rent something before they ended upside down in their equity. (Same friends would never lease and drive cars that are paid for, by the way.)

Then I re-read an article in GQ magazine called “The American Dream, No Money Down” (Don’t ask why I have GQ in my house! That is not polite!) by Joel Lovell from February 2008 and I have to say that while this article raised my killer-mommy-nesting-hackles a year ago, I get what he was not only saying but predicting.

Is this problem really just geographic, as in those on the coasts are the only ones who really need to be concerned about falling housing values? How about stagnating housing prices combined with finance companies completely dropping financing or reducing potential customers to only “A” level credit (scores of 700 and above) only for cars? Or mortgage companies completely stopping all stated income which is refusing home finance to people who want to put 50% down on their homes, but because employers are increasingly turning employees into consultants, are unable to show 2 years of 1099 tax returns?

A lot of people are in a pickle or nearing the looming pickle of having to make these decisions.

Own, rent, house, car, bag it all and try corporate housing a la Grapes of Wrath with a dash of public transportation? Let me know what you think.