Are You Living the American Dream Today? How many times in your life have you heard that “Owning a home is the American dream”, or words to that effect, mentioned? According to one survey, 56% of Millennials, 59% of Gen X’ers, and 68% of Boomers all chose it as part of the American dream – so my guess would be “at least some”.
“Home ownership is the American Dream” may have originated as an ambitious promotion by real estate industry leaders decades ago and never truly ended (similar to how diamond industry members created an unofficial rule that every marriage proposer must spend three months of income on an engagement ring). Or perhaps, simply as an expression of consumerism itself, America enshrined one status symbol – and its most expensive option – as its mission statement.
No matter what is at the core of your belief and life choices, why isn’t it at least worth questioning why? So let’s open this dialogue by dispelling some of the biggest myths associated with home ownership’s financial benefits.
“Your Home Is an Investment” Unfortunately, your home is not an investment; at least not a good one. With recent rapid housing price increases, I fear we are once more entering into bubble territory of housing crisis 2.0 bubble territory. Even if these prices continue to rise legitimately and steadily upward, inflation adjusted housing price index has only doubled since 1890 (that’s two centuries ago!) which represents an average gain of 0.788% per year!
+ There are no comments
Add yours