Here's a quick quiz that should really hit home.

While on vacation, do you stare in storefront windows at real estate listings?

Are the websites Zillow.com, Trulia.com, and Propertyshark.com at the top of your Web browser bookmark list?

Can you name the hosts of TV shows: "This Old House" or "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"?

If you are nodding your head "yes" to those questions and others there's a good chance you suffer something called "house lust," a fetish-like preoccupation with everything real estate.

House lust has become as American as apple pie, says Daniel McGinn, a Boston-based national correspondent for Newsweek. He ought to know. He wrote the book on the subject: "House Lust: America's Obsession With Our Homes" (Random House, $24.95).

McGinn's research indicates house lust gets some of the blame for the last housing boom-to-bust cycle because the distinctly-American addiction caused many buyers to overdose on more house than they could afford. Easy mortgage money made it affordable to carry a monkey on your back.

McGinn says instead of taking the pragmatic roof-over-your-head approach to housing, Americans have become emotional infants about shelter. They envy, scheme over, bellyache about and ogle homes they can't have and probably don't need.

Called a "mania for homes" house lust reached fever pitch during the last boom when supersized trophy homes, second, third and fourth homes, household-disrupting renovations, over bidding, and the fascination with real estate websites and TV programming reached "obscene" levels, says McGinn.

Even professionals left tenured careers to rush off and join the army of real estate agents.

McGinn, who explores the seven deadly sins of house lust in his book, conducted research during sleep-overs in models homes, at real estate investment seminars and by obtaining his real estate license in a single weekend.

Is the housing bust creating withdrawal symptoms?

No, says McGinn. The possibility of more house lust euphoria trumps any temporary pain caused by the housing crunch.

Here's what McGinn's research uncovered.

• Bigger is better. McGinn spent time with a couple who traded up in a series of houses that started at 2,000 square feet and ended with a $3 million 9,000 square foot McMansion that includes a men's hangout room and twin dishwashers. The couple says their backyard is still too small.

• Virgin homes. McGinn uncovered the "ick factor" a cultural penchant for shiny, new things. People prefer an unsullied new home's smell rather than living in someone else's grit. The penchant helps fuel new home construction.

• Voyeurism. American's have become both virtual and real life looky-loos gathering intel on line from a growing number of data-based real estate web sites and visiting open house events with no intention to buy.

• Money lust. Too many, real estate is money rather than shelter. It's the dot com stock of the New Millennium. In fact, many refugees from the dot com disaster sought financial shelter in real estate. And many of those speculators now feel like they've had a bad weekend at the crap tables in Sin City.

Disclaimer: The writer of this article also has house lust. His dream home is a real, newly built, masonry, commercial loft, with a California ocean view. Yes, an unstable structure built on unstable sand in unstable Earthquake Country. It would have to be an engineering marvel. But he has to have it.

Published: January 30, 2008

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

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.