Clark gets a lot of questions from people who want to buy a home. The first question he asks them is how long they plan to live there. And, he will say, if they don’t plan to live there five years or more, they should rethink buying a home. When you buy a home, you pay about 10 percent in transaction costs. The same is true when you sell a home. And you need to stay there at least five years to break even on those costs. But there may be a new way to meet your needs if you can’t live there that long. It was a pilot program that now is available in several states. What happens is you pay an insurance premium that is 1.5 percent of the value of home you want to protect. You pay the fee upfront and it buys you “downside protection.” That way, if there is a sudden downturn in the home values and you have to sell, the insurance picks up the loss. The program is called “The Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation,” and it will be available through participating lenders. Lenders will have individual information on it. And, as lenders start to participate we will have more information on the site. Now, if you are planning to be there five years or longer, short-term spikes and falls will not affect you. Over time, home values rise just above the rate of inflation in states and regional areas. We don’t know how the market will respond to this, but we’ll see.