"The cultural attachment to home ownership significantly influences public policy discussions about housing. In pursuing the home ownership dream, consumers routinely ignore the financial risks associated with making this large, long-term investment in real property. Though home ownership is touted and subsidized because it helps increase jobs, boosts the demand for goods and services, and helps build prosperity, no one wants to admit that U.S. businesses need potential or existing homeowners to go deeply into debt in order to maintain high corporate earnings for U.S. companies.
Though inconsistent with the home ownership myth, the time has come for consumers to start ignoring the immediate, likely short-term, end result of achieving the status of homeowner. To force consumers to consider the long-term risks on investing in a house, home ownership subsidies should encourage renters and potential homeowners to focus on the likely long-term benefits of the investment itself. This should cause homeowners to decide whether it is in their best interest to devote limited investment funds to purchasing a house and also to consider the economic consequences of a failed investment; that is, the inability to use those funds to make other investments, and potentially losing the home to foreclosure."
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