(MONEY Magazine) – Harvard professor Marjorie Garber is the author of Sex and Real Estate: Why We Love Houses, which argues that Americans have strangely romantic--even obsessive--affairs with their homes. We asked her about the financial implications.

Q. So many torrid affairs end unhappily. Isn't it risky to get emotionally involved with something that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars?

A. People in this country buy and sell every three to five years. It's a kind of serial monogamy--or polygamy without the guilt.

Q. In a hot market, wouldn't it be financially prudent to keep our feelings at bay?

A. We don't fall in love with a house because it has the right amount of square footage but because it has something kinky about it--something you can fantasize about.

--J.C.