Finders keepers, right? You have probably heard of squatters' rights, or the idea that someone can find a place and live in it long enough to claim it legally. As lovely as it would be to find a home, ...

When I bought my first house in 2010, at age 24, it was the Great Recession, and the housing market—the entire world, really—was off-kilter. A little like it is now. I was newly married, a recent ...