The American Dream Without a House? Believe It
“American Dream Properties” is the name of a McMansion developer in New Jersey. About a decade ago, Arlington, Texas, rebranded itself as “The American Dream City,” promising “diverse neighborhoods where the housing dollar stretches further than most cities.” At a campaign rally in York County, Pennsylvania, last month, Donald Trump said, “We’re going to bring back a thing called the American dream.”
The American dream symbolizes many abstract ideals: hard work, assimilation, equal opportunity. But for generations it has meant one particular path in life: Get a job, save up for a down payment, and achieve the fairy-tale ending of domestic bliss and monthly mortgage payments.
Now, though, with soaring housing costs — along with student loan debt and inflation — homeownership is becoming increasingly inaccessible for young Americans. As of June, according to Redfin, nearly 1 in 10 homes in the country were worth $1 million or more — a share that more than doubled since June 2019. And as prices rise, people are becoming first-time homeowners later in life. In a 2023 report from the National Association of Realtors, the median age for a first-time homebuyer was 35. In 1981, it was 29.
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Even before the current housing crisis, people have been arguing that the American dream was disappearing, deteriorating, dying or dead. But perhaps it is simply changing.
Over the past month, I’ve been speaking with millennials and zoomers across the country to learn how they think about the American dream. My survey was nonscientific, but it dovetailed with recent polling: Many of the people I spoke with expressed how today’s exorbitantly high prices have made homeownership feel unattainable, and that in such an uncertain world — plagued by pandemics, political turmoil, war, climate change and other disasters — it felt foolish to pinch pennies for the goal of one day buying property. Instead, many young people are placing more value on community and family, growing their wealth in other ways, or spending more on everyday pleasures.
When the concept of the American dream first emerged, it was meant to be an ideal for people to mold into whatever fit their lives. Over time, it became a more rigid model, cementing homeownership at its core. Now, young Americans have been forced into a turning point for the American dream, one that might not have a house in it at all.
A Cornerstone of the National Myth
In 1931, author James Truslow Adams published his bestselling history of the nation “The Epic of America.” On Page 404, he described the “American dream” as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” Adams brought the phrase into the American consciousness — and his definition didn’t involve a house.
Throughout the Great Depression, the phrase became “embedded in the national conversation as a cornerstone of the mythology of the United States,” according to Lawrence R. Samuel, author of “The American Dream: A Cultural History.” People were feeling that “America had lost its way, the Depression was a result of greed from the stock market and people are wondering what the country is all about.” Adams’ “American dream,” then, was “intended to sort of rescue the country from the concept that we should pursue wealth,” Samuel said.
But by the mid-1940s, a postwar economic boom brought a new definition of the successful American life. A slew of factors combined to make it far easier for white men to purchase homes: The 1944 GI Bill offered guaranteed loans for veterans to purchase homes — about a decade later, $33 billion in home loans had been given to veterans. Real estate developer Levitt & Sons created Levittown, a community of more than 17,000 cookie-cutter houses on Long Island that became a blueprint for affordable suburban development.
The “baby boom” and the Cold War put even more emphasis on the role of the home in American life. “The house becomes the ideal container for families,” said Samuel. “All the materialistic things that go in it drive the economy, and the house becomes a way to contrast ourselves against communism — which is not domestic oriented.”
In his book, Samuel pointed to a quote from Elliott Spratt, president of a trade organization for manufacturers of building materials. After President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Housing Act of 1954, Spratt said, “The American dream of good homes for everyone is much closer to becoming a reality.”
Popular culture and advertising helped shape the public imagination. Sitcoms like “The Donna Reed Show” and “The Jetsons” portrayed housewives maintaining the ideal home. A 1956 Pall Mall ad showed a couple smoking a celebratory cigarette after closing on a home.
The benefits of the postwar boom, however, weren’t equally distributed. Many of the new communities like Levittown didn’t originally let in families who weren’t white. Loans were disproportionately granted to white borrowers; Black veterans were excluded from many of the benefits of the GI Bill. Women were frequently denied mortgage applications if they didn’t have a male co-signer.
The house also became a way to maintain gender roles. As jobs moved into cities and factories, a “division of space” was created, said Amy Castro, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice. “Women are relegated to the sphere of the home, and men are pushed into the wage workforce. That split set the stage for aspirational homeownership in the present.”
The prosperous postwar period that laid the groundwork for a housing boom ended with a recession in the 1970s. By the early 1980s, inequality also began to deepen. Addressing the nation on the state of the economy in 1981, President Ronald Reagan noted that the average monthly mortgage payment had nearly doubled in a decade. “What’s happened to that American dream of owning a home?” he asked.
Home prices continued to rise. According to census data, the median inflation-adjusted price of a single-family home reached $119,600 in 2000, up from $30,600 in 1940.
But the gender imbalance had also shifted. In the 2000s, single women were significantly outpacing single men in home purchases, as their educational attainment and income levels increased. Owning property continued to be encouraged in mainstream culture — it gave you security and a valuable asset, while also signaling that you were an exemplary American. “If you own your own home, you’re realizing the American dream,” said President George W. Bush in a 2002 speech.
Then came the 2008 housing crisis. That year, more than 2.3 million homes across the country had at least one foreclosure filing. News reports referred to the American dream as “wounded” and “elusive.” By 2010, single-family home sales fell to the lowest since 1995, and instead of getting married and buying property, many people in their 20s were moving back in with their parents and delaying adulthood.
The emphasis was now on the “dream” part of the term — owning a home might not have felt as realistic for many, but it was still an aspiration.
‘I’d rather just call my landlord.’
In a study published earlier this year, researchers at Minnesota State University Mankato asked around 500 baby boomers and millennials how they defined the American dream. The most common answer among boomers was having a home, but that was only the third most popular response among millennials. For the younger generation, the most common answer involved having a family, followed by having opportunities and reaching goals. Similarly, a recent Bankrate survey found that 88% of boomers agreed that owning a home was part of the American dream; 68% of Gen Zers did.
The explanation is largely material. Construction hasn’t kept up with the need for homes. And the shortage, some economists argue, is exacerbated by those boomers: Born in the right place at the right time, they’ve been able to own their homes, and they aren’t moving out of them. Investors are buying up available properties in high volumes, adding an extra layer of competition to the market. And in addition to high mortgage rates, the increased demand and the tightened supply have led to booming costs.
These are the kinds of concerns I’ve heard again and again as I’ve talked to young people. When it came to their discretionary income, they seemed more focused on spending that would improve the present rather than saving that could improve the future. Alex Adamek, a 27-year-old field sales representative, said, “I’m not going to just live and restrict myself all for something that may happen down the road.” Instead, Adamek, who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, chooses to pay more in rent for a nicer apartment, enjoy meals out with friends and occasionally splurge on travel.
The feeling of being tied down that comes with a home, which previously might’ve been referred to as stability, also didn’t sound appealing to some people. And all that labor of maintaining a home, the tasks that those vintage print advertisements made seem so romantic, are now viewed more like a burden than a mark of independence.
James Zarsadiaz, a 38-year-old history professor living in San Francisco, grew up in a home owned by his parents, but has no interest in saving up for one himself. “The garden needs tending, the pipes burst, we need to renovate the kitchen. There’s always a to-do list with homeownership,” he said. “It feels like a lot of work. I’d rather just call my landlord.”
But all those negative aspects of homeownership considered, most people I interviewed didn’t have an overwhelming sense of anger or loss. That may be because they’re finding replacements, redefining the American dream for themselves. When I asked them to describe what the American dream meant to them, no one said it was dead. Instead, they cited having a sense of community, the ability to experience life’s small pleasures, family and the freedom to pursue careers and lifestyles of their choosing.
“If I’m able to have a roof over my head that is a rental, but it feels like home to me and I’m able to cultivate community and family, what difference does that make?” said Emme Furlong, a 25-year-old film production agent living in New York City.
There are, of course, serious downsides to renting forever. Being at the whim of a landlord who can raise your rent can be risky. And there’s a good reason buying property is still viewed as a surefire way to generate wealth: You put monthly payments toward a property that can one day be sold for a profit rather than paying it to a landlord.
But in today’s market, where mortgage rates are high and property taxes have been on the rise, there are all sorts of added risks. “All too many homeowners fail to anticipate the total cost of ownership, including insurance, property taxes and maintenance,” said Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst at Bankrate, who noted that many homeowners take on debt to pay for these “hidden costs.” Besides, sky-high prices very well may be forced to come down. Young people today could just be increasingly cleareyed about homeownership.
That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not thinking about long-term financial stability. Many are investing more in stocks, contributing to retirement accounts and earning extra money through side hustles. According to the 2024 Charles Schwab Modern Wealth Survey, the average age at which boomers started investing was 35. For Gen Z, however, the average age was 19, and for millennials, it was 25. And in a Bankrate survey from last year, Gen Z respondents were the most likely to say they were ahead of where they should be for retirement savings.
With a modicum of security and a little less responsibility than homeownership, younger people may be able to focus more on their families and their goals — the words they used to define the American dream in the Minnesota State University Mankato study. According to Kristin Scott, a professor of marketing and one of the study’s authors, boomers are more concerned about “physical stuff,” such as houses and cars, whereas the younger generation’s answers were of more personal forms of achievement.
This all felt more in line with James Truslow Adams’ 1931 definition of the American dream as a vision for a country where life could be “better and richer and fuller” and “with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” A dream that people could define and shape for themselves.
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