Renting has some advantages as well.

Tough to make a 15 or 30 year mortgage commitment when you don't know what your employment status will be a year from now.

And if your wage will not keep up with inflation.

I spoke yesterday with a co-worker whose 58 year old husband just lost his job because of downsizing. They will likely lose their home since he is having a problem finding a job that pays more than a fraction of what he was earning in the job he had invested over 20 years of service to.

We have been renters at the same complex since 2005 while we wait out our bankruptcy penalty years and slide into our senior years. Here is thenext wrinkle. The new owners of our apartment complex think we need an updated townhouse; so we can completely move out for two weeks and sign a new higher leaseupon move in or find another apartment when our current lease is up. Then the new tenants will get the benefit of the updated unit for which the rent will be greater than our current $1300 for 2bd 2bath -1300 sq ft. Our never married millennial daughter with crazy scoop loan debt currently lives with us but wishes she didn't. We've been thinking to use DH's veteran home loan benefit to buy another small home to avoid increases in rent as we further age. Good or bad idea? Our credit is only fair to good after all the crap we've been through. Rent on our townhouse has gone up from 950 to 1300 over those years. DH is 66+ and currently working an IT gig at one of the Wall Street devils dens. Really confusing as to where we should go from here???

it looks like the Millenial generation can say goodbye to the American Dream. Or at least the home ownership part of it.

Just deal with my credit being destroyed.

Not sure if this is an option for you, but it's worth considering.

I'm sure ulcers would ensue at some point during that year.
One unit (we're in a townhouse) has a half-a-dozen signs posted on the windows, warning the previous owners of re-entering the home. I'm sure they did the same thing, and walked away.
It's still happening. And now with the threat of interest rates going up, and with the dumb people like me who signed up for bad loans....there are going to be more.

In certain circumstances in California, a homebuyer can walk away from a house that is underwater without ruining his/her credit.

Don't count on this. Even though it is possible, it depends on the facts.

People need to call lawyers. Note the plural of lawyer. Call around and see if someone who is well qualified, an expert, wants to talk to you about your mortgage.

Owning land, a home, is the American dream.

The early settlers came here because they could own land that they could not own in Europe or where they came from.

Land ownership is the reason for America in a way.

So losing the American dream of owning property, of owning land, is a really serious problem.

Our country is to some extent based on the concept of protecting the ownership of private property. What happens when property ownership, ownership of land or a home is possible for only the most secure and prosperous Americans?

I think we have a crisis in our country when that happens because the vast majority of people who cannot obtain or won property themselves will have no personal interest in safeguarding the rights of property owners to their property.

Tzarist Russia comes to mind. Medieval Europe, especially England, comes to mind.