January 22nd, 2026
I recently wrote an op-ed for the Phoenix Business Journal arguing that we face a housing affordability paradox.
For homeownership to become more affordable, home values would have to stabilize or decline so that, when wages rise, homebuyers' purchasing power increases. But if home values stabilize, and homes are no longer our nation's great consumer wealth builder, would owning a home still be the American Dream?
For decades, Americans have willingly accepted the downsides of homeownership: the costs of buying and selling, property taxes, insurance, yard and pool service, and those sudden, expensive repairs that seem to come at the worst time. When you rent, many of those burdens disappear.
So why buy?
Because for generations, we believed in one powerful idea: owning a home builds wealth. And if that belief fades, demand does not simply soften. It evaporates. In its place emerges a rental nation, where institutional owners accumulate homes and everyday families rent from them.
That was my warning. Then my son, Casey, read it.
And he politely, but firmly, told me I had it backward.
What follows is his counterpoint. I loved it enough to publish it, even though it challenges my own view. That, too, feels very American.
Casey’s View: The American Dream Was Never Just About the Money
My dad recently argued that the American Dream of homeownership is fading because homes may no longer feel like great investments. I understand how someone could reach that conclusion, especially someone who has spent a lifetime in real estate watching values soar.
But I think that puts the cart before the horse.
For most Americans, especially first-time buyers, purchasing a home has very little to do with spreadsheets, internal rates of return, or beating the stock market. People do not wake up thinking, “I should buy a house because it will outperform the S&P 500.” That mindset exists, but mostly among investors and people who grew up immersed in real estate.
For everyone else, buying a home is about something far more human.
Most first-time buyers are coming from apartments. And anyone who has made that jump knows the feeling.
You walk into your own backyard. You do not hear neighbors through the walls. You can play music loudly. You can paint the walls, hang pictures, knock out a cabinet, without asking permission. You are not just renting space. You are creating a world that is yours. That is homeownership.
It is imagining carrying your child across the threshold of a home you own. It is extra space, a garage, and a sense that this place reflects who you are and who you are becoming. These are not financial calculations. They are emotional milestones. They are the American Dream.
There is a popular idea today that renting can be the smarter financial choice. In theory, maybe. In reality, renters do not outsmart landlords. If landlords start losing money, rents rise. Renters ultimately pay the mortgage, taxes, insurance, and maintenance, plus a profit margin.
Owning may not always be cheap. But renting is rarely a better long-term deal.
And here is something worth remembering: when older generations bought their first homes, they probably were not thinking about getting rich. They were thinking, This is mine. I can raise a family here. I can build a life here.
The emotional security comes first. The investment return follows.
Owning a home feels like having a castle, a place to retreat to, a place that is yours in a noisy world. That emotional value is precisely why homes become good investments over time.
The belief that homes are good investments did not create the American Dream. The American Dream, once experienced, created the belief that homes are worth investing in.
Maybe the dream is not dead.
Maybe those of us who already lived it just forgot what it felt like at the beginning.
