re: Home ownership losing importance as "American Dream"

my wife and i closed on our first house last week.

we rented for the last few years while i was in graduate school because it made more sense. i was in a transient field and our situation was unstable. we didn't feel like we were throwing money away. we were paying for a place to live and weren't tied down to a house long term. we enjoyed that flexibility.

when our situation became more stable, it made more sense to settle down and buy. we became homeowners because it was just more practical, not because it was a lifelong dream or something. we don't romanticize it.