Thanks for the good response in turn.... I think a very core issue when discussing this is the fact that the majority of people aren't buying a home - they are

Thanks for the good response in turn.... I think a very core issue when discussing this is the fact that the majority of people aren't buying a home - they are mortgaging it. Borrowing money, and the additional costs that entails, have become the accepted norm for people to purchase a house. I do realize this is realistically the only way many people may be able to ever "own" a house - but if you spend the rest of your life paying it off, do you ever really own it for practical purposes? The primary issue for me is that, in current society (talking us/ca here) - paying a financial institution an arm and a leg for the privilege of having them lend you enough money to "buy" a home as the standard way of doing this is the root of the problem - change our financial habits as a society to reduce this need in a few generations and things will change.