Many people understand homeownership as serial trading up with a goal of arriving at some sort of real estate perfection. But that dream house may be more elusive than it seems.

“Like any possession, its impact on happiness diminishes over time,” said Ravi Dhar, a psychology professor and the director of the Center for Customer Insight at Yale School of Management. Citing a theory widely held by happiness researchers called hedonic adaptation, he said, “things give us more joy when they are first acquired than over time, as we adapt to them.”

Based on this principle, to remain happy with your home you need to move periodically. The technique seems to be working for Luis Moreno, 43, a film editor in New York. When he arrived in Manhattan in 1992 after graduating from college, he shared a two-bedroom with five roommates. “I got the dining room and had a sheet for the door,” he said, “but I felt like I made it, because it was my first place in New York.”

Like many young professionals, he went through a series of rentals, more crash pads than true homes.