Do Most Americans Still Dream About Homeownership?

Millions of Americans have found themselves dreaming about homeownership, but it is still part of the American dream?

Frederick Peters reports in Forbes:

“The idea of a place of one’s own drives the American story. We became a nation out of a desire to slip the bonds of Europe, which was still in many respects a collection of feudal societies. Old rich families, or the church, owned all the land and, with few exceptions, everyone else was a tenant. The magic of America lay not only in its sense of opportunity, but also in the belief that life could in every way be shaped by the individual. People traveled here not just for religious freedom, but because in America anything seemed possible.”

Rosen Consulting Group also prepared a research paper for the National Association of Realtors just before the shelter-in-place orders went into place:

“Homeownership is undeniably the cornerstone of the American Dream, and is inseparable from our national ethos that, through hard work, every American should have opportunities for prosperity and success. It is the stability and wealth creation that homeownership provides that represents the primary mechanism through which many American families are able to achieve upward socioeconomic mobility and greater opportunities for their children.”

Did the pandemic change the American view on homeownership?

• • 59%: “I want to be a homeowner”
  • 33%: “I want to live in a space that I can invest in improving”
  • 31%: “I need more space”
  • 22%: “I want to build equity”

Homeownership has a huge impact on Millennials.

The same survey says that 62% of millennials say a huge part of buying a home is the desire to become a homeowner. This goes against what many experts thought was going to be the first “renter generation” in our nation’s history.

George Ratiu, Senior Economist at realtor.com, reported on the survey and he said:

“Americans, even millennials who many thought would never buy, have a strong preference for homeownership for the same reasons many generations before them have — to invest in a place of their own and in their communities, and to build a solid financial foundation for themselves and their families.”

“Millennials have delayed marriage and having children in favor of investing in education, pushing marriage and family formation to their early-to-mid thirties, compared with previous generations, who primarily made these lifestyle choices in their twenties…Delayed lifestyle choices delay the desire for homeownership.”

“As more millennials get married and form families, millennials remain poised to transform the housing market. In fact, the housing market is already experiencing the earliest gusts of the tailwind.”