Too many “for sale” and “for rent” signs make me nervous. Since my husband and I invested in the community with our first home purchase last July, I’m often thinking about home values and “rentability.”

It’s not that I’m planning on leaving anytime soon — or ever, really — but I imagine we’ll be ready for an upgrade in another few years or another few kids. When that time comes, I’d like to know we could sell or rent our house at a value that proves our buy to be more like an investment and less like a debt trap.

I’ve lived in Hinesville for more than three years now. So I’m familiar with the transient nature of the area. People leave all the time, and then more people come. It’s a cycle that makes it a little difficult to get into the community, but never boring once you’ve acclimated. I know many people are just passing through for a duty station at Fort Stewart. I thought I was one of those people who thought this hot, humid, mosquito-infested, allergy-ridden place would be a suffering that would last but a short while. Lots of the transient community feels the same.

Now I can’t imagine why anyone would ever leave if they had the opportunity to stay. Still, when realty signs have taken up residence on almost every block, it worries me a little. That’s why when the Hinesville Area Board of Realtors released the Liberty County real estate data, I couldn’t help but feel a little relieved.

Sometimes it’s easy to let your worries become bigger problems than they should be. This is definitely one of those areas for me. With all the talk of downsizing and deployment, it makes sense that people would naturally start to move away — at least some people. In my head, that was a larger problem than it is on paper though.

The data basically said there are slightly more homes on the market than there were this time last year, although not many. They are staying on the market a little longer before sale, but not much longer. And sale prices are up.

In my imagination, home values were plummeting and finding a buyer or renter was impossible. Obviously, that isn’t the case. People come and people go in this community, it’s true. What I need to remember is that in this area, transience may be the norm, but the community will keep on reeling people in and persuading them to stay, just like it did my family.