Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property

For more than a year, Corbin and Marion Lester searched for a place to call their own in Billings, Mont., where they lived in an apartment. Rent was sky high, and like many other twentysomethings relying on family for help, they moved in with his mother to save up for a down payment. But scrolling listings in that high-priced market didn’t get them anywhere. Finally, with their second child on the way, the couple widened the map. The house hunt became a spreadsheet of different states, with columns for cost of living, homeschool laws, parenting policies, politics, and taxes.

Eventually an area just outside of Spartanburg, S.C., a place where their money had double the buying power, rose to the top of their list. An older house with fading wallpaper became the front-runner—an 1,800-square-foot one-story with four bedrooms, a single bath, and a highly sought-after 3.8-acre yard.

But flying across the country to tour a house they might not buy was a luxury the Lesters couldn’t afford. Instead, they relied on technology. Marion FaceTimed with their real estate agent while Corbin took a break from his construction job and listened on speaker.

They liked what they saw and heard described, a fixer-­upper with lots of potential. “We wanted to have a guaranteed increase, even if the housing market went down. We knew we could add another bathroom ourselves, things like that,” Marion explains.

So the Lesters hoped for the best and did all the inspections they could from across the country. Convinced the home’s bones were sound and willing to live with what Corbin describes as dated decorative “skin,” they made an offer. The Lesters became homeowners. And, in some ways, outliers.

Nearly 2 million Gen Z and millennials failed to form households in 2025, casualties, in part, of a housing market characterized by low inventory and high costs. Put another way, some 2 million more young adults would have struck out on their own if homeownership rates still looked like they did a decade ago.

Owning property—owning your own home—has long been a part of the American dream. Some would say it’s even a ticket to the middle class. But this milestone of independence that comes with a mortgage and a set of keys is increasingly out of reach for many would-be buyers.

MOST AMERICANS can finish what is arguably the most famous line of the Declaration of Independence: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of …” But happiness wasn’t the framers’ ­original word for that spot. Early drafts used property, reflecting 17th-century British philosopher John Locke’s idea that governments exist to secure the rights to “life, ­liberty, and property.”

While property didn’t make the final cut of the Declaration’s preamble, the issue of land ownership may have been central to the Revolution itself. England’s Proclamation of 1763, which blocked westward settlement, inflamed colonists. Many had shed blood in western conflicts. Many others planned to expand westward, or already had, and saw no reason to halt that momentum. To them, the law was a clear attempt at tighter imperial control. That shared grievance helped unite diverse groups of disgruntled colonists and contributed to the push for independence.

In the ensuing centuries, however, homeownership wasn’t plausible for the majority of Americans. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal changed that with the introduction of long-term, fixed-rate mortgages backed by federal loan guarantees. Subsequent administrations also did their part to promote homeownership as a path to stability and wealth. In 1995, Bill Clinton rolled out a sweeping 100-point plan to boost homeownership to an all-time high by the end of the century. George W. Bush later pitched homeownership as a way to fight racial inequality, offering first-time buyers a helping hand with the 2003 Downpayment Initiative. But the financial crisis and Great Recession of 2008 wiped out $7 trillion in home equity as banks foreclosed on 8 million homes. Suddenly, the American dream looked very different.

Even though U.S. economic policy rewards homeownership with mortgage subsidies, interest deductions, and capital gains breaks, rising home costs could soon leave the United States looking like other countries, where lifelong renting is common. Affordability is the main driver. Mortgage rates are about 6.5%, and home prices keep rising. With inflation and student debt in the mix, scraping together a down payment seems next to impossible for many would-be buyers. By one Realtor.com estimate, it takes a median-income household seven years to achieve that goal.

Scarcity is a problem, too. Louisiana real estate agent David Landry has been in the industry for more than 30 years, and he says he’s never seen anything like the current housing market. “There’s no affordable product out there,” he asserts.

Speaking from his Baton Rouge office, Landry puts the price point on starter homes in his area at $200,000. He says it’s hard to find anything for less that’s livable and qualifies for the types of financing that first-time buyers use. Typical FHA government-backed loans, the go-to for lower down payments and credit scores, require houses to be move-in ready. That’s frustrating to a generation raised on renovation TV.

“Flaking paint, torn flooring, even a dented Sheetrock wall, those don’t fly with FHA appraisers,” Landry says. “If a seller won’t fix them, I have to list the house for cash or con­ventional buyers only. It won’t qualify otherwise.”

In other parts of the country, though, a $200,000 starter home would be a steal. Bostonians pay more than twice that. Ditto for Sacramento. In Atlanta and Albuquerque, it’s close to $350,000.

There are pockets of relief, however. Savvy buyers can still land a deal in Des Moines under $200,000, and more of Austin’s fastest-growing neighborhoods are seeing sub-$250,000 listings. But for an increasing number of young Americans, homeownership feels out of reach. A 2025 report from researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago suggests some are effectively “giving up.” A 2024 Harris Poll underscores that idea: 42% of Americans, including 46% of Gen Z, say, “No matter how hard I work, I will never be able to afford a home I really love.”

Economist Kyla Scanlon argues younger people face a sense of “financial nihilism.” She says Gen Z has lived through as many as three big economic downturns, and it’s shaped how they interact with the world. “They’ve watched the American dream rot before their eyes,” she submits.

CORBIN LESTER says he didn’t crave homeownership until he had a family. He was perfectly fine renting, then his priorities shifted. “You want your own place. You want to give your kids the kind of life you had—space, the outdoors, maybe even animals. Good luck finding a rental that offers all that.”

An inheritance after his father’s unexpected death gave Corbin and Marion the means to pursue a conventional mortgage, the kind that would let them renovate a property at their own pace. The home they chose was built more than 100 years ago. It still smelled new when the country was preparing to celebrate America’s sesquicentennial.

In February 2025, the Lesters pulled into South Carolina after a grueling three-day drive from Montana. Marion was five months pregnant. Their toddler daughter was strapped into the back seat of their car.

“When we walked into the house, I honestly thought we had made the worst mistake,” Marion remembers. She and Corbin are both pretty clear about what they felt that day: despair.

“The house was freezing cold. No lights. Everything was dark. It needed a good cleaning,” Marion says. Utilities soon sparked to life, though, and even with their moving van and belongings delayed, the young family had a good first night on a borrowed air mattress and pillows.

But somewhere below the home’s heart pine floor joists, pipes thawed, then burst as the Lesters slept. By morning, the well had pumped unchecked for hours, leaving two feet of standing water underneath the house. It flooded their furnace and their hot water heater. When quotes for the needed HVAC and plumbing repairs came in at $35,000, Corbin just shook his head. No, thank you, he decided. He’d do it himself.

It was a painful introduction to homeownership. While Corbin delayed his job start by a week to get their water restored, Marion made do without water, heat, and her gas stove, buying an electric skillet for cooking. She remembers messaging a woman she’d met at church. “I told her that my house is freezing and we don’t have any water. Could my toddler and I please come over?”

For days on end, Corbin came home from his kitchen renovations job, then worked on his own house until he dropped into bed. “That was the routine. I was probably YouTube’s No. 1 user for three months straight.” His plucky efforts paid off in big savings. The plumbing repairs cost $2,000, he estimates, and the HVAC around $8,000. But Corbin doesn’t dwell on that part of their home story. “It was one of those things where you just have to thank God that He’s in control. And you know you’ll look back one day, and it’ll be funny.”

Although the American dream isn’t inherently biblical, homeownership can be a godly desire. Besides the financial equity it offers, a home can anchor a family and enable its members to thrive as dependable members of a church and community. Still, Psalm 49 cautions against pride in wealth, reminding believers that homes and status are ultimately temporary.

For Marion, that truth was underscored in her childhood when she witnessed the financial upheavals of 2008. Homeownership could quickly flip from an investment to a liability, and “guaranteed assets” weren’t so guaranteed after all. “It showed me that for most, owning your home is more of a rent-to-own from your mortgage holder. There isn’t much safety or stability when the economy can turn a lifetime investment upside down at any given time.”

Last year’s National Association of Realtors survey of recent homebuyers and sellers revealed a striking shift. The share of first-time homebuyers dropped to a record low 21%, while the typical age of first-time buyers climbed to an all-time high: 40. For perspective, the median age of first-time homebuyers in 1991 was 28. That delay comes with real consequences. Homeownership has long been one of the primary pathways to building wealth in America, and pushing it further into midlife can mean significantly reduced financial gains—up to an estimated $150,000 in lost equity on a typical starter home.

Policymakers are responding with a range of efforts aimed at helping prospective first-time homebuyers make the mortgage leap. In Georgia, lawmakers targeted housing scarcity with a proposal to curb corporate ownership of residential properties. With as much as 30% of the state’s rental homes owned by large companies, the bill would cap corporate holdings at 500 homes and bar foreign investors from purchasing residential properties. It failed.

In March, a bipartisan group of California lawmakers introduced a package of six bills aimed at lowering construction costs. Modular housing is central to the effort, with several measures focused on cutting red tape for this type of construction and reducing transportation costs for building components.

At the federal level, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is pushing the American Dream Accounts Act, designed to offset rising costs as the typical down payment has more than doubled since 2019 to $30,400. The proposal would allow first-time buyers to shelter savings from the IRS, helping them save for down payments faster.

Meanwhile, mortgage credit standards are shifting. The long-standing 620 FICO threshold for many borrowers is being phased out by entities like Fannie Mae that supply capital to the mortgage market. In its place, lenders will be able to consider a wider view of creditworthiness, including rent and utility payment histories.

Lawmakers and lenders have their reasons for wanting to promote homeownership, but at its core, owning a home is about laying claim to a small corner of the world. It offers permanence in a way few other investments can. It’s where mail is delivered, clothes are folded, and homework gets done.

On a bright July morning last year, the Lesters’ daughter, Meribelle, made her entrance into the world via the master bedroom of her new family home in Spartanburg. She and her barefoot older sister are fond of the spacious backyard that came along with the deal, and they were enthusiastic spectators when their parents hand dug a duck pond among the leaves last fall. Ducks, in Marion’s opinion, have advantages over the family’s flock of chickens.

“They take longer to mature, but ducks lay longer,” she said. “They’re more of a long game.”

The Lesters are all about the long game. They have a new garden in the works, along with plans to update their bathroom, repaint the exterior, and finish the chicken/duck house they started out back. They even found time to refinance their mortgage, dropping from 7.3% to 5.9%.

“It was worth it,” Corbin says. “A $220 a month savings.”

They’re putting down roots and beating the odds. For the Lesters and many others, buying a home isn’t so much about chasing the American dream as it is about taking responsibility for it.