The Washington DC Area is Obsessing about Granite Counter Tops.

Maybe not obsessed with granite counter tops, but certainly with real estate.

Notice the description of the imaginary house mentions granite counter tops. Granite counter tops are the “schwag” of the real estate bubble. (Schwag was the little stress balls, t-shirts, key chains and other assorted useless door prizes that dot-com companies used to give away when they were about to go public. Schwag, like granite counter tops in real estate, have only a miniscule amount of value.)

Real Estate Lust

[When, precisely, did real estate replace sex as the object of America's basest, guiltiest, most voyeuristic impulses? When did it come to enjoy dominion over our days and our dreams? When did a house or an apartment become not just a place of shelter or an emblem of status or even a considered investment but an obsession that haunts us no less intensely than Vladimir Nabokov's nymphet Lolita tortured the imagination of poor, sick Humbert?

Come on, don't be coy, you know you want it. You want it bad. You clipped the ad out of the back of the newspaper with shaking, sweaty hands. It went something like this: "Close-in location, 4 br, 3 full ba plus 1/2 , fam rm w/cath clng, hdwd flrs thruout, nu kitchen w/Sub-Zero and Vkng, granite tops, full bsmt f/ home thtr, deck, 1/2 acre lot, good schools, curb appeal, must see to believe!"]

More…