One facet of it is cultural: For a lot of people, someone isn't seen as a "real adult" until he or she owns a residence. (Obligatory "if you have a mortgage you're just renting from the bank and have to fix the water heater yourself" line here.)
Another is financial: There are heavy tax incentives towards ownership, though this is lessened in the era of cheap money. (On the other hand, if a mortgage can be had for cheap, that puts upward pressure on house prices because fewer units of currency go towards borrowing costs.)
Still another is logistical: Most areas of the U.S. have very few renter protections. If your landlord wants you out and you're not under a current lease, you're out (property rights of the owner and all). This goes double for the desirable places to live. For those who can manage it, the stability of "my housing cost is a known quantity that varies only a little bit outside of my control" (obligatory "did you save for a new hot water heater?" goes here) outweighs the relative immobility of property ownership. Plus, a somewhat high price is put on the ability to paint one's own walls, have a pet, and do minor renovations without asking for permission. Witness the plethora of "home remodeling" shows and TV channels. In many rental units, doing this is not just frowned upon, it is actively forbidden by the lease.
As always, to stave off the inevitable replies of "but my rental experience has never been like that," your miles may vary. I lived in one apartment in Texas that let me do everything short of bulldozing my unit. I lived in another in Seattle that charged me $300 because I got a drop of orange drink on the carpet in a bedroom.
Partly, yes. We also get to deduct interest paid on mortgages from our federal income taxes. This deduction can be used for primary and secondary homes.
The tax deduction alone is a massive incentive to buy a home. Particularly given the housing options available in most cities... we have massive tracts of suburban development where a mortgage typically costs a similar amount monthly as renting a large apartment downtown.
On the other hand, the savings from the income tax deduction is easily nullified by local property tax, maintenance costs, and the differential between homeowners' and renters' insurance.
There are significant regional differences too. As other threads have pointed out, this house is designed for parts of the country where the land has very near zero value, and may have been in the family for over 200 years.
Contrariwise, I live in coastal California. When I first moved here, I paid USD 1000 per month to rent a large 1 bedroom apartment within walking distance of downtown (and only 400m walk from work!). To buy an apartment of similar size at the time was roughly USD 350 000 and it would be further from downtown.
Also, California has stronger renter protection laws, and the city I live in has a few more. For various reasons poor people may not wish to exercise those rights (arrest warrant, status as illegal immigrant, unpaid fines), so there are still a lot of shady dealings with renting, but a large fraction of those are already priced out of owning a home, even living with 3+ people per bedroom.
>"Still another is logistical: Most areas of the U.S. have very few renter protections. If your landlord wants you out and you're not under a current lease, you're out"
This sort of thing happens when you don't have a contract that enumerates what happens if either party wants out.
Part of it, here in Aberdeen at least, is that rental prices are extortionate, and if you can scrape together the money to buy, it's often much cheaper; I'm paying a little over half the rental cost of my flat in mortgage payments each month. Most other home-owners I know are in the same boat and save a lot by owning rather than renting. I realise there are added costs to owning, and it's not quite apples-to-apples, but I'm pretty sure we all still come out ahead at the end of the equation.
I realise I'm very fortunate to have been in the position to buy a place five years ago, and I'm grateful for the combination of fortuitous timing and hard-work paying off. That said, if I could have continued to rent affordably, I would probably still be renting today.
It goes back much longer. Thatcher's Right to Buy policy successfully tapped into this desire in 1980, and the rental market wasn't deregulated until 1988. Specifically, the properties covered by Right to Buy were strongly eviction-protected.
Another is financial: There are heavy tax incentives towards ownership, though this is lessened in the era of cheap money. (On the other hand, if a mortgage can be had for cheap, that puts upward pressure on house prices because fewer units of currency go towards borrowing costs.)
Still another is logistical: Most areas of the U.S. have very few renter protections. If your landlord wants you out and you're not under a current lease, you're out (property rights of the owner and all). This goes double for the desirable places to live. For those who can manage it, the stability of "my housing cost is a known quantity that varies only a little bit outside of my control" (obligatory "did you save for a new hot water heater?" goes here) outweighs the relative immobility of property ownership. Plus, a somewhat high price is put on the ability to paint one's own walls, have a pet, and do minor renovations without asking for permission. Witness the plethora of "home remodeling" shows and TV channels. In many rental units, doing this is not just frowned upon, it is actively forbidden by the lease.
As always, to stave off the inevitable replies of "but my rental experience has never been like that," your miles may vary. I lived in one apartment in Texas that let me do everything short of bulldozing my unit. I lived in another in Seattle that charged me $300 because I got a drop of orange drink on the carpet in a bedroom.