I just finished watching several videos on the financial argument for renting vs. buying a home (parts one, two, and three). These videos, along with a comment a professor made during a lecture during the Summer ’11 semester ([paraphrased and summarized]I’d love to see a student try and design a home within the financial means of middle class families) has got me thinking abit.
Due to current market conditions it seems to make more long term financial sense to rent a home versus buying one, yet so many of us do the latter. Why is it that, Americans, especially, value home ownership (we have the 6th highest rate of home ownership in the world)? While that question is best kept for another discussions with those better educated and experienced than myself it makes me wonder: Assuming the reasoning for home ownership is largely based on factors such as a sense of ownership (in most cases land and a home) and consequential freedom of modification, can apartment dwellers come close to experiencing the same phenomena and deeply entrenched feeling of satisfaction that our culture has peddled into our minds over generations?
I’ll make a large assumption that the price of home ownership relative to our incomes has dramatically risen over the past few decades and that the rate of rent relative to our incomes has remained largely the same.
This seems more like a curiosity in an area outside of architecture, but I’ll leave it here anyway.