More Americans are renters now than at any time in the last 50 years

A significant part of the problem is "expectations." Watch some of today's home buying shows. Go into the homes of 20 somethings that are just getting started.

You have kids who want to buy homes and cars that are the equivalent of what their parents live in and drive 25-35 years later in their lives than the kids are. The first three homes my wife and I lived in were under 1000 square feet and took every bit of a two or three year stay at a duty station to fix up and leave with some sweat equity. By the time we hit our fourth duty station I was still called "Captain NCO" because I bought a house we could afford, in a neighborhood that was predominately junior NCO's; instead of a house the bank would finance in a neighborhood full of senior captains and junior field grade officers, who couldn't afford to take their family out to dinner once a month.

If you go into these "starter" homes and they have every "Gee whiz neato" appliance and electronic device known to man. I am on my second cell phone since 2002. The only reason I got a new one is because the old one fell out of my pocket into the horse trough. We furnished our homes out of Goodwill, the Salvation Army, and garage sales. But when I got out and was ready to buy a permanent home. I bought a 35 acre farm with a nice farmhouse and three solid barns, a rusty grain truck, and most of the farm equipment I needed, cash on the barrel head.

What can you expect when you have a welfare ceiling that makes it near impossible to raise your income above $12 dollars an hour (because you lose more benefits then you make in increased earnings) Socialism is the problem not the cure.

Alan K. Good Article and great amplifying comments. My first home cost us 17k. We had nightmares about how we were going to make the payments. We survived as our children and now our grandchildren are surviving in their starter homes.