It wasn’t until the recovery from the Long Depression of the 1880s and the Great Panic of 1893 that the concept of owning one’s residence became a widespread notion in the USA, and the notion was spread by residential real estate devloper/shysters for the most part in the Northeast and Ohio River Valley.
Up until the Great Panic of 1893, men of high net worth would never pay to own their residence when alternate investments with real positive rates of return were available.
The concept of the homeownership society was a sham pushed by various oligarchs during the history of the country, be it Railroads and large land owners in the late 1890’s, large landowners in the near countryside during the 1910’s, the CIA after WWII, etc.etc.
Homeownership in suburbia is less than a three generation blip in the history of the North American continent.
-— I live in NJ, where property taxes have reach such epic heights that every homeowner who wants to own a house for long enough to raise a family, will end up paying more than 150% of the future house sale value in property taxes. “Home ownership” has been reduced to long term leasing from the municipal taxing authorities in all but name.
ON a positive last note, the advances in prefab housing have actually substantially reduced the ongoing maintenance and utility (heating/cooling) costs of houses going forward to the point that even with lower lifetime household incomes, home ownership might be a viable national goal...
“It wasn’t until the recovery from the Long Depression of the 1880s and the Great Panic of 1893 that the concept of owning one’s residence became a widespread notion in the USA”
Actually, I think when this country was founded the idea of private property ownership was the idea. I don’t recall either that the pilgrims rented.