Pursuing The Slowly Fading and Elusive American Dream of Home Ownership
Published 3/13/08 (Modified 3/9/11)By MoneyBlueBook
It's unbelievable how much it costs to buy a house these days. Looking at single family home prices in my area and even those located in less appealing crime ridden neighborhoods, I am just now realizing that I may never be able to afford one in my lifetime. Well, at least not the American dream home I always imagined. Not that I ever really wanted the traditional country home with the proverbial white picket fences, but somehow I always envisioned I would be closer to this dream by my late 20's. I always figured by this time I would already be the proud owner of a brand new single family home or at least a newly constructed townhouse. So far, due to the lack of sufficient finances to match the out of control housing prices, I have not been able to attain my goal. Is this dream becoming a fantasy I wonder?
Ever since the beginning, the great American dream of prosperity and happiness has always revolved around owning a piece of land (preferably with a house on top of it). Home ownership has always been associated with security and stability. The mere act of possessing a parcel to call your own has always symbolized the triumph of moving from the unexplainable stigma of renting to a greater plane, found only on higher rungs up the economic and social ladder. But in recent years, even those who thought they had found their American dream have seen it shatter into a nightmare of swirling foreclosures and defaulting
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