Mortgage interest rates had risen eight of nine weeks by Aug. 22, tacking more than a full percentage point onto the cost of financing a home, when statistics revealed home sales and home prices from coast to coast continued to boom virtually unabated.

As unemployment fell in July, the economy vaporized more than a half million jobs and labor force participation slipped, yet homes were still selling like hot cakes.

The National Association of Realtors reported this week sales of existing homes were up 5 percent to a record annual rate of 6.12 million sales a year. From the sun drenched beaches of Florida where the resale sales soared 16 percent in July to the California Sierras where prices rose 19.1 percent during the same year-to-year period, the housing market continues to linchpin the economy.

That's because it isn't interest rates, joblessness or economic uncertainty that's driving this housing market.

It's the more personal, basic need to put a roof overhead that's keeping the housing boom alive.

Life changes, the need for more space, investment returns and a financial distaste for renting, all much more so than lower monthly mortgage payment are what's driving today's home buyers to escrow.

Only 4 percent of Americans who plan on buying a home in the next two years cite low mortgage rates as their biggest motivating factor, according to a survey "Home Is Where the Heart Is," conducted for Lawyers.com (a LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell Web site) by market researcher Harris Interactive.

The survey said 25 percent of home buyers are in the market for a new home because of a life change (retirement, relocation, a growing family, a shrinking family, etc.) as their primary motivation. Eighteen percent said they wanted a bigger house or more property; 16 percent were after a better investment; and 12 percent were tired of flushing their money down the rent market's black hole.

"While home ownership certainly offers people many benefits, surprisingly few prospective home buyers seem to take full account of the financial value of owning a home," said attorney Alan Kopit, lawyers.com's legal editor.

"Many home buyers, especially first-timers, are likely unaware that home ownership offers significant tax savings and other great benefits to one's financial and credit health."

The survey also examined the task of buying a home and home buying demographics.

Harris Interactive conducted the omnibus study about home ownership with a telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,011 adults -- 507 men and 504 women -- 18 years of age and older, living in private households in the continental United States.

The survey also found:

Published: August 28, 2003

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.