The home ownership rate in America peaked at 69.4% in 2004, as of the 4th quarter of 2014, according to cnbc.com the seasonal adjusted rate of home ownership had plummeted to just 63.9%. This is a stunning reversal of the home ownership rate within America, to which, as always, it is the poorest and less fortunate amongst us that have suffered the most during this interim of massive amounts of foreclosures and transfer of home ownership from one segment of the population to another. During the time of this steep dive in home ownership, the percentage of homes being bought through all cash transactions has soared, to which according to smartasset.com, Goldman Sachs estimates that as high as 57% of all home sales are in fact, by cash. This statistic seems perplexing, especially in an age of unparalleled mortgage rates which have dropped to historic lows. While there are many possible explanations as to why cash sales have soared, the most likely reason for this occurring is that the new home owner class are investors, buyingphysical assets "low", with the belief that they are getting the best of it, and also buying not for the purpose of occupying the homes themselves, but specifically to rent the homes out and to reap the tax benefits of property depreciation and rental ownership, while also having an excellent chance to achieve capital appreciation over the long term.
While there are certain advantages of not owning a home, such as the fact that your flexibility of movement is far more easily attained, there are a multitude of good reasons, why owning a home is to your benefit, such as the fact that your home represents the place that you live, for you and your family, so it provides you shelter, comfort, and memories. It also is an item that with appropriate credit that you can purchase over an extended period of time, to which, normally, or historically, you will see an appreciation in its value over that time. There are also many tax benefits for being a home owner, as well as giving you skin in the game and in your community. In a country in which too often, our Constitutional rights are under assault, or being challenged, owning your own home, gives you, in most cases, a "castle" that you can call your own, to which you are your own master, decider as to who or what is allowed entrance into your domain. It is your private property to do with as you desire, subject to the general norms of society, and your home too can represent a legacy to pass on to your heirs, as your home for most people of modest wealth, is in fact, their largest asset of all.
When you no longer own your own home, or never have own your own home, this means that you have no living quarters that are your own by legal right. In feudal times, the common people lived on a manor, an estate that they didn't own, but only were granted the right to work the land, providing the proceeds of their labor to the feudal hierarchy, in exchange for permission to live there and for protection from outside alien forces. The feudal life was a harsh life for the serfs, a life with no future, and little hope of opportunity or escape from it, but American today is slipping towards a new feudalism itself. A feudalism that may be richer in material wealth for the peasants, but a feudalism that precludes too many Americans from ever owning their own housing property, with often little or no opportunity to make living wages, with only substandard educational institutions available for their offspring, to which, the upshot is that generation after generation will be stuck in a life that in representation makes them nothing more than glorified wards of the State.