I love it when people tell me they enjoy my column and think I do a great job.

Not that I get a ton of those e-mails. But I treasure every one!

However, I also get a fair number of messages from readers who think I'm up in the night. One I received recently, from a reader named Aaron, brought up some points that I think merit discussion.

Aaron took issue with a statement I made in a column on reverse mortgages, in which I wrote, "Many of us look at our homes as piggy banks, hoping that, over the long term, they will rise in value. And someday, if we're in dire financial straits, that value will be available for us to tap."

The word to describe that attitude, Aaron wrote, is "diseased."

"I've said this for decades," he wrote. "I say it to everybody. I tell young co-workers, trying to figure out how to own a home: 'A home is NOT AN INVESTMENT. A HOME IS A PLACE TO LIVE!' But the idiots who think, 'I can buy it, flip it in six months and double my money' have proven the modern idea, born of greed and suckled on credit, to be as idiotic as I have proclaimed it for years."

He wrote that anybody who buys a house for any reason other than to live in it "deserves all the horrors a collapsing economy can muster."

"I cheer each story of economic collapse of people who have tried to get rich in housing," Aaron wrote. "I hope ALL of them end up penniless, starving and living under an overpass: they have created an economy wherein the 'American Dream' of simple home ownership is all but unavailable to most people, and the human pustules are STILL hoping the economy will turn around to where they can return to their predation. I am hoping such a turnaround never happens. The current downturn is very likely the greatest thing that has happened in 30 years.

"My hope is that the current recession will lead people to rethink their values. … Personally I rejoice in the current economic climate as this country's just deserts. I have paid the penalty in my life for my errors; it is important people learn to take their lumps, today, for their stupidities as well."

Don't hold back, Aaron. Let me know how you really feel!

I do understand Aaron's point of view, to a certain extent. I never meant to imply that I look at my home as an investment first and a residence second. Quite the opposite.