The case for renting forever

Summary

Podcast Summary: Today, Explained

Episode: The Case for Renting Forever
Date: November 16, 2025
Host: Jonathan (JQ) Hill, with guests including Aisha Roscoe, Jasmine Melvin, Rachel Cohen Booth, and Jerusalem Dempsis

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Main Theme

This episode re-examines the enduring American ideal of homeownership by exploring alternative ways people are living—bucking tradition and making a case for why renting (potentially forever) might not just be practical but even preferable. Through the stories of friends, experts, and new living models, the episode challenges homeownership as the pinnacle of adulthood and financial security.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Blending Families and Redefining Traditional Living

• Aisha Roscoe and Jasmine Melvin's Story (01:11 - 10:14)
  • Two divorced mothers and longtime best friends buy a house together in D.C. to co-parent their five children.
  • Their arrangement is inspired by practical needs (childcare, emotional support, and finances) and the skyrocketing cost of homeownership.
  • They emphasize how shared living blurs traditional roles, increases support, and fosters a chosen-family dynamic.
  • Notable quote (05:21, Aisha Roscoe):
    "If I met a man and I fall in love, we, you know, in two years, we could be, you know, buying houses, having a baby, doing, you know, everything jointly. Right. And no one would look, no one would bat an eye at that. Right. ... So why would I feel more comfortable doing that with them versus buying a house with someone who I've been through thick and thin with?"

2. The State of Housing Affordability

• Expert Perspective from Rachel Cohen Booth (12:33 - 18:42)
  • Home prices skyrocketed during the pandemic amidst low interest rates; despite rates now being higher (6–7%), prices haven’t dropped, leading to a market freeze.
  • Many “locked in” buyers won’t sell, while new buyers face unaffordable entry, pushing more into long-term renting.
  • Renters prioritize affordability and increasingly seek community, fueling new housing models.
  • Notable quote (13:47, Rachel Cohen Booth):
    "People who haven't bought yet, like me, feel like they may never be able to. So all of that pressure is really pushing people to think differently about housing."

3. New Models: Adult Dorms & Intergenerational Home-Sharing

• Innovative Housing Solutions (14:40 - 18:42)
  • Adult Dorms:
    • Conversion of empty office buildings into shared “dorm-style” apartments: private bedrooms, shared kitchens/bathrooms, much lower rent.
    • Cities like Denver, Seattle, and Minneapolis are exploring these models.
    • Notable quote (15:49, Rachel Cohen Booth):
      "A lot of people don't mind sharing if it could mean hundreds of dollars cheaper rent a month."
  • Intergenerational Home-Sharing:
    • Connecting seniors with extra rooms to younger renters needing affordable housing (e.g., via apps like Nesterly).
    • Unlocks millions of unused bedrooms across the US, with potential benefits for all parties.
    • Notable quote (16:49, Rachel Cohen Booth):
      "About 60% of US homes have at least one spare bedroom. ... So these empty bedrooms are starting to look a lot more attractive, both to younger people, but also to older people who could use a little bit of help around their big houses."

4. Deconstructing the Homeownership Myth

• Jerusalem Dempsis’ Case Against Homeownership (22:09 - 29:18)
  • Renting offers valued freedoms: flexibility, less stress, and the ability to live in better locations.
  • The financial advantages of ownership are overstated—many overlook the long-term costs (interest, taxes, maintenance), and returns are not guaranteed.
  • The cultural bias for ownership is rooted in early 20th-century politics, anti-immigrant sentiment, and American ideals about property as a mark of social status and "stake" in the community.
  • Notable quote (22:09, Jerusalem Dempsis):
    "Homeownership overrated. That's my take."
  • Notable quote (23:53, Jerusalem Dempsis):
    "All that extra money that you could use to be investing in the stock market, investing in other kinds of, you know, large index funds, that kind of investment is almost guaranteed to be higher than what you're going to get from investing in your house."
  • Argues for redefining the American Dream in terms of economic and personal freedom rather than homeownership.
  • Notable quote (27:57, Jerusalem Dempsis):
    "The American dream is always freedom. We've just always pushed this through homeownership. ... I don't think homeownership is freedom for everyone."

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Chosen Family and Housing:

  • "It's not this thing where we're, like, nickel and diming each other. ... If I eat, you eat. If I got it, you gonna have it." (08:03, Aisha Roscoe)

• On New Housing Solutions:

  • “Living in the office. I don't know, the model is like, instead of these full private units where everyone has their own bathroom, each floor would share bathrooms, like at an office building.” (15:11, Rachel Cohen Booth)

• On Money and Friendships:

  • "I think it helps that we are both financially stable on our own. ... If I'm watching all the kids, I may order them pizza, order them McDonald's. ... I know she'll pick it up the next time..." (07:46, Jasmine Melvin)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:11 – 10:14
  Aisha Roscoe and Jasmine Melvin discuss their joint home and blended family living arrangement
• 12:33 – 18:42
  Rachel Cohen Booth explains the housing market freeze and alternative living models
• 14:40 – 16:41
  Adult dorms: converting empty offices to shared housing
• 16:49 – 18:42
  Intergenerational home-sharing and tech solutions
• 22:09 – 29:18
  Jerusalem Dempsis presents her critique of homeownership as a financial and social necessity

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Flow and Tone

The episode balances personal storytelling with policy expertise and sharp social commentary, maintaining an open, thoughtful, and sometimes playful tone. Listeners get both the emotional realities and the pragmatic calculations behind current housing choices, encouraging an open mind about what counts as “success” in American adult life.

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Takeaway

The traditional trajectory of buying a home as the foundation of adulthood and wealth is being upended by both economic realities and new value systems. Sharing space, renting into one's later years, and forming unconventional households are no longer just desperate measures—they may be better suited to our financial and social needs. This episode encourages listeners to think beyond old scripts when planning their futures, making "renting forever" feel like a valid, even liberating, option.

Transcript

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[Aisha Roscoe]

I brought it up to you and was like, well, what would you think if we moved in together?

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

People who, who haven't bought yet, like me, feel like they may never be.

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

Able to Homeownership overrated. That's my take.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Hi.

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

Thanks, Eric.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Oh, hi. The other day, my producer Kelly and I went to a quiet residential neighborhood in D.C. to visit NPR host Aisha Roscoe.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Yes. So I just picked him up from school.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

It's a two story white and brick home with a front and backyard and pumpkins out on the porch. There's a inside, it's shoes off, homework out. Aisha's sprinkling old BAE on salmon for dinner.

[Aisha Roscoe]

I need food.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

I can be a little skeptical of the American dream, but honestly, when I look at Aisha, she's living it. She has a great job, an active social life, and she lives in her own home that's full of people she cares about and that care for her. And the key to it all? Her best friend.

[Jasmine Melvin]

No, she lost it.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Yeah, before I came on Picture Day.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

That's Jasmine Melvin. She and Aisha met back in college when they both worked at the student newspaper. Flash forward 15 years and between the two of them, they have five kids ages 7 to 12. And they all live under the same roof.

[Aisha Roscoe]

We just come in. I make the food.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

I'm Jacqueline Hill. And this week on Explain it to Me from Vox, we're rethinking the way we live. So you may have noticed that the housing market still sucks. That means a lot of us are trying new things Whether it's moving in with your best friend, using old housing in new ways, or bypassing that white picket fence altogether, our options have changed, and we're changing with them. For Jasmine and Aisha, their decision to blend their families was. Wasn't just a practical one. It was financial, too. They decided to buy that house together.

[Aisha Roscoe]

We were both going through this transition in our lives, like, we had both gotten divorced. We're dealing, you know, trying to get our kids together and do all of that on our own, which is really hard. And I think we both realized, like, we could use some support, but it's hard even when you want to help each other out.

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

We.

[Aisha Roscoe]

When one friend is like 40 minutes away or 30 minutes away, it's like, and you have kids, they might as well be on the other side of the planet. We would always say, even when we were married, like, wouldn't it be great if we were next door neighbors or whatever?

[Jasmine Melvin]

Like, our next houses need to be designed so much easier. And the kids at the same school. That's a big thing when the kids are at the same school. The schedules just sync up so much better.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Yeah. So then I think I brought it up to you and was like, well, what would you think if we moved in together?

[Jasmine Melvin]

And I was like, see, I'd been thinking the same thing, but I thought you would think I was crazy, so.

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

I didn't say anything.

[Aisha Roscoe]

But then DC prices, we was like.

[Jasmine Melvin]

We were going to the open houses and seeing what we want.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Yes.

[Jasmine Melvin]

And, you know, that would be easier with combining our budgets.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Yeah.

[Jasmine Melvin]

And going in on it together.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Yeah.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

How do you all figure out the division of labor? Like, I don't know. I think.

[Jasmine Melvin]

I mean, we're both moms, so the mentality is. It's just who's there? And we get it done.

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

Yeah.

[Jasmine Melvin]

And then once we're home together, I guess we play to our strengths. Aisha gets home a little earlier with the kids than I do, so she'll start dinner. Then when I get home, then I can start helping the kids with homework.

[Aisha Roscoe]

You know, in a situation like this, you do have to kind of go with the flow. It can't be like, I. If you're the type of person who can't have anything out of place, you. You can't really. This is not going to work. And I mean, with kids, I don't know how that works anyway. And then I think because we're not romantically involved, you don't have that, like, you know, do you love me? Do you respect me? Do you like all of that stuff that comes along with it or the. And then.

[Jasmine Melvin]

And then the traditional gender role. Oh, you have to do the cooking and cleaning, and I'll, you know, take out the trash. It all gets split and shared.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Yes. It has to get done. So we figure out how to get it done without all the emotional stuff tied to it.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

When you first told people about this arrangement, what's the reaction?

[Jasmine Melvin]

I positive, like, oh, that's so interesting. A lot of people wrap their head around it, but then they're like, that's such a good idea.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Yeah. And I think people were like, you know, a lot of people are like, I. I always wanted to do that with my best friend or whatever. I do think, like, when it was like, okay, we're gonna buy a house together, I think that was a little more like, okay, are you sure about that? Because that is a big investment to do together. But I mean, like, you know, I've said this before. It's like, you know, if you've, you know, we've been best friends for, like, 15 years. I think it's more than 15 years, actually. But it's like, if I met a man and I fall in love, we, you know, in two years, we could be, you know, buying houses, having a baby, doing, you know, everything jointly. Right. And no one would look, no one would bat an eye at that. Right. Like, and you've known this person for two years, but because you're romantically together, people feel like, oh, that makes sense. And so when I looked at that, I was like, well, whoever I would end up with, I wouldn't know them nearly as well as I know Jasmine. So why would I feel more comfortable doing that with them versus buying a house with someone who I've been through thick and thin with, seen in crises, done all this stuff with. And so that's why it made sense to me.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Have there been any growing pains?

[Aisha Roscoe]

I think with the kids? Yeah, with the kids, because they have to get used. I mean, they know each other. They've grown up since they were newborn born. Since they were in utero. Yes, they were with each other, but living together is different.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Yeah. What was it like telling them? How did they respond when it was like, okay, we're all going to be living in a house together?

[Jasmine Melvin]

Initially, it was all excitement, basically. Sleepover every night.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Yes.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

Yeah.

[Jasmine Melvin]

That's the thing when we just.

[Aisha Roscoe]

I mean, look, they. They fight like cats and dogs, but they fight like brothers and sisters. Right? Like, that's. They fight like siblings, but then they get over. They get over it really quick.

[Jasmine Melvin]

You know, you have one saying, oh, get out my room. Get out my room. I gu. I guarantee you, if we go look where they're all out, they're all sitting on the couch together, side by side, trying to make room, all playing together.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Yeah. It's like. Or it's like, I don't want to be around any of you as I sit where everyone is. There are lots of rooms in this house. There are lots of places you could go. I don't want to be around you. It's like. Yeah. So their actions kind of speak louder than their words on that.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

What's it like combining finances with your friend? Because I feel like money is the thing where, you know, whether it's romantic, family, friends, money is the thing that can make every relationship stressful. What has that been like, and what's that like?

[Aisha Roscoe]

Yeah.

[Jasmine Melvin]

Well, I think it helps that we are both financially stable on our own. We're not, like, pinching every penny. If I'm watching all the kids, I may order them pizza, order them McDonald's. I'm not. Hey, can you cash at me? Your kids part?

[Aisha Roscoe]

Yeah.

[Jasmine Melvin]

Because I know she'll pick it up the next time when she's getting things for my kids.

[Aisha Roscoe]

And my thing is always. And I think we have both. Always been like this our whole friendship. If I eat, you eat. If I got it, you gonna. You gonna have it. We. That's the way we get down. And so it's not like. It's not this thing where we're, like, nickel and diamond each other. Annelise, why you up here? What. What are you doing? We're into doing an interview. Okay.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

All right.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

Okay.

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

Okay. Close the door.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Close the door. You gotta shut the door. Shut the door.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Shut the door.

[Aisha Roscoe]

And see, this is. See, now this is the real. Come out.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

I'm curious. What has this experience given you that the quote, unquote, traditional living experience doesn't?

[Jasmine Melvin]

I'd say just kind of building on the friendship and motherhood kind of all together.

[Aisha Roscoe]

And I also think just, like, being able to bond in a way that isn't surrounded with, like, romance, Right? Like, because I love romance, y'. All. Look, it's a problem. I am like, a ro.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

I am.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So are you a lover girl? I am a lover girl. It's sad, but that comes with its own set of things. But it can be stressful. And I think, like, not having that and being able to build a bond that's really based on love and respect and trust. I know this is my friend. I know this is my sister. I know we good. And I know people always talk about chosen family, but then it's really, you know, rubber meets the road when you're, like, bringing your kids into it. Right.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

It's interesting because I think a lot of the time we do think of, like, romantic relationships, like, oh, we're going to take it to the next level, but, oh, you can take your friendship to the next level.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Yes. Yeah. Like, yeah, that's the thing. You can take your friendship to the next level. Like I said, it's a unique situation because we didn't think we was both going to be divorced. Pushing forward. That was not the plan. That was not our plan for life. But God said, look, but you still have another life that you can build. Right? Like, it didn't work out the way you thought it would, but it can still work out in a different way.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Okay, so the plan has changed for a lot of us, but could that mean that we actually have more options? That's next.

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[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

I'm JQ and we're back with Explain it to Me. When you live with your best friend and her kids, you can share meals and drop offs and homework. That was a big draw for Aisha and Jasmine, but it was also a way to afford the kind of space they wanted to live in. The housing market seems to be worse than ever. I wanted to know why and what other alternatives might be out there. So I called up my colleague.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

Hi, I'm Rachel Cohen Booth. I am a senior policy [e-mail] Rachel.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Covers housing and she says that there are a lot of things at play when it comes to cost.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

It's really expensive. It's getting even more expensive with tariffs, frankly. But sort of a quick dirty overview. Housing prices soared during the pandemic when interest rates were at historic lows. Price growth has slowed a lot since then, but the prices aren't actually falling. And that's in large part because mortgage rates have more than doubled. They've been at 6 to 7% for a while now. And so that basically adds up to this kind of freeze in the market where home sales are weighed down and the people who did buy a house a couple years ago are basically locked in.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

We knew we got a killer deal.

[Jasmine Melvin]

And that we were super lucky.

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

We definitely could not afford to buy our house.

[Mortgage Broker]

Now I will not give up this house or the rate at which I got the money.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

And people who haven't bought yet, like me, feel like they may never be able to. So all of that pressure is really pushing people to think differently about housing.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Okay, Rachel, we are both renters and probably will be for the foreseeable future. I actually just moved into a new place and one of the big reasons I chose it is that the rent is considerably cheaper than where I was. How are other people in our shoes, picking where to live?

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

So I think the primary thing people are looking for is affordability. They're looking for just a house that fits their budget, and that is definitely steering people in various directions. But some people are also, you know, don't want to live alone. They want to find community. They want to find housing in bustling areas with lots of amenities and people around them. And so two models that I've covered that I think are really interesting. One is adult dorm rooms, which is a sort of an older idea that's now coming back in this new form. And another one I'd refer to as intergenerational home sharing.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

I want to dig More into both of these. Let's talk about adult dorms first. What is that?

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

It sounds funny, but it's a serious idea. And potentially this kind of two birds, one stone situation. Cities are short millions of homes. There's this huge housing shortage.

[Mortgage Broker]

Aw, man.

[Sponsor Announcer]

I'm never gonna be able to afford.

[Mortgage Broker Colleague]

The kind of place I want.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

And at the same time, office buildings are sitting empty. After the pandemic, after the shift to.

[Mortgage Broker Colleague]

Remote work, at least I don't have to go to the office anymore.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

I covered this research from Pew and this architecture from Gensler that tries to tackle both problems at once by turning all these vacant office buildings into adult style dorm rooms. Living in the office. I don't know, the model is like, instead of these full private units where everyone has their own bathroom, each floor would share bathrooms, like at an office building. And you'd have, you know, a bed, a desk, a mini fridge. But then shared bathrooms and shared kitchens and shared living spaces with the tv. And so that makes it a lot cheaper because it could cut construction costs by up to a third.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Woo.

[Mortgage Broker Colleague]

More money for avocado toast.

[Mortgage Broker]

Let's go.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

And so we're seeing this already now in cities like, the researchers looked at places like Denver and Seattle and Minneapolis as kind of prime candidates. And these are places with high rents and high vacancy rates and relatively flexible zoning laws.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

I can hear the potential in this. You know, I think of like, me when I just graduated from college, or.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

You'Re like a retiring, you know, grandmother and you want to downsize and be near your grandkids in the cities or something.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Yeah, and like, it does make sense, but I think there are also some elements that probably seem bleak to some people.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

I mean, this isn't like you're going outside to the bathroom. A lot of people don't mind sharing if it could mean hundreds of dollars cheapers of rent a month. So that's, that's sort of the thinking. Everyone will kind of make their own calculations as long as it's not unsafe.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Okay, got it. I want to know about the other option you mentioned. What's intergenerational sharing right now?

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

This. These stats kind of blew my mind. About 60% of US homes have at least one spare bedroom. And among empty nesters, there are roughly 21 million houses with two empty bedrooms or more. So it's basically this idea of matching older homeowners who have extra space with younger renters who need affordable housing. And it's kind of this way to like unlock these millions of empty bedrooms that are just Sitting unused right now across the country. So, you know, these empty bedrooms are starting to look a lot more attractive, both to younger people, but also to older people who could use a little bit of help around their big houses.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

How does it work? Do you just like head to the closest pickleball court and find the nicest person and say, hey, can I live with you?

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

There's, there's like a lot of different models that are coming up. Some are sort of state coordinated models, some are private companies. One company I covered is called Nesterly.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Nesterly, an award winning service, tackles this issue by connecting high quality renters to older adults with space in their home.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

They use like an Airbnb situation where a homeowner can make a profile, a younger renter can make a profile. You guys have this like secure video chat over the app to meet each other and then you have like a lease agreement type thing.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Through their app, city by city, Nesterly.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Provides the tools and services needed to unlock this Win win housing solution.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

There is a lot of concern, you know, senior scams are a big thing. A lot of people don't necessarily want strangers coming into their home. So there needs to be a lot of care in how these lease agreements are set up and like making sure everyone feels comfortable and making sure you feel comfortable being able to end the lease. But it's not a traditional sort of arrangement that we, that we're so used to right now.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

It sounds like there are, you know, some interesting new options out there, but I do notice that all of these options involve renting.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

Yeah, that's right. Co living spaces, home sharing, they are different kinds of renting and honestly, I think more people are going to be, including me, renting for the indefinite future. It's just becoming the new normal and I think it's something that we're going to have to get used to.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Coming up. What if renting isn't the problem? Why? Maybe we shouldn't have gotten used to home buying in the first place. Foreign.

[Mortgage Broker]

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[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

We're back. This is. Explain it to me. I'm jq. There's one more person I wanted to talk to today and that's Jerusalem Dempsis. She's a Vox alum and now she's the editor in chief at the Argument magazine. And. And when it comes to how we live, she has a hot take.

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

Very hot, very hot. Homeownership Overrated. That's my take.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Ooh.

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

Take it or leave it. Take it or leave it. J.Q.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Okay, that's spicy. Especially in America. Explain why you've come to this. Like, what makes you say that?

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

I mean, I'm a renter and I love being a renter. I love the freedom of renting. I love being able to move when.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

I want to move.

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

I love not feeling let when something breaks that it's on the back of my head constantly, that it's my responsibility to like make sure the roof is okay and make sure the fridge isn't gonna break and all these, like, there's so much stress associated with owning things. And a house is a massive asset. Even if you're like an entry level home buyer, where you have like a 200,000, 300,000, $400,000 house, like, that's a lot of money. And if it goes wrong, like, that's your biggest asset. And for most of your life, you're just paying a lot of money for this asset that at any moment could cause you like 10x the amount of grief. And so to me, I think it's not that homeownership is never a good idea for anyone. That's obviously not true. There are a lot of people who benefit from it and who enjoy getting to have the freedom of, you know, renovating their home and making it exactly how they want it. But I think that we overhype the financial benefits, like way too much.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Can you say more about that? Like, what are the financial benefits that we're told it has and what are the realities?

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

Yeah, so I think there are basically two financial benefits we're told about. One is the forced savings mechanism. So if you're going to pay your rent or you're going to pay for shelter in some way, it's either going to be rent or to a mortgage. And so if you're going to be forced to save it into a house where like, that value eventually is yours, the end of the day versus you're giving it to a landlord and then you never see it again, like, that's one, which is obviously true. But the second is that the return on that investment is going to be great and that's just like not guaranteed at all. There's so many things that have to happen for the return on your investment in a house to be worth it. First, you have to be able to hold on to that house through bad times, and that's really difficult. A lot of people, the Great Recession, for instance, or when you lose a job, you have a medical emergency, you have to move because your kids have to go to a different school, whatever it is, have to sell their house at a time that's not financially opportune for them. So you're selling at a time when maybe interest rates are really high, so you're giving up a low interest rate or selling at a lower price maybe than you bought for it, or you're not even making that much money on top of what you were able to sell for it. But secondly, owning a home is often more expensive than renting.

[Mortgage Broker]

I've never told anyone this before. As a mortgage broker, I actually rent my apartment.

[Mortgage Broker Colleague]

A lot of people don't recognize the amount of interest that you are accumulating over a 30 year mortgage. And that's before you think about property taxes, insurance, needing a new H vac in the next five years, needing a new roof in the next 10 years.

[Aisha Roscoe]

And you don't get maintenance costs back. That's just keeping it the same. That's just you throw away your money.

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

Constantly in home ownership. So all that extra money that you could use to be investing in the stock market, investing in other kinds of like, you know, large index funds, that kind of investment is almost guaranteed to be higher than what you're going to get from investing in your house.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

How did we get to this point where it's like, okay, you're going to quote, unquote, build wealth. A house is how you do that. A house is the way you do that.

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

The history of this is quite psychological and it is quite political. The idea that owning a house gives you a bigger stake in your community is a very conservative idea that comes about in the sense that like renters are transient, they're immigrants, they're young, they have no stake in their community. If you rent then you're not gonna, you're gonna treat your community badly. Like you'll like put trash on the ground or you'll be a bad influence. And so a very large anti renter attitude really gets sparked in the United States as we see high levels of immigration coming into this country in the early 1900s is when we're really seeing that come to fruition. And then you see an attempt to make everyone have a real stake. The ownership society becomes something people really, really care about. And you know, it becomes psychologically and legally codified in the United States Self conception of what it means to be a good upstanding citizen is that you own your house, you have this white picket fence and you live in a place where the land is yours.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Yeah, I want to get into that social aspect of it. You know, like you said, part of the mythos of homeownership is that you have a house and therefore you are rooted in the community.

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

Like I don't even think that that's true. Like I'm a renter and that because I'm a renter it means I can live in a nicer area than I could otherwise afford. I live in a part of Northwest D.C. that the House that I'm living in there's just like absolutely no way that my husband and I could afford it if we had to buy that house. It's just, like, absurd to us, like, to even imagine that happening. And so what that means is, like, I'm much closer to my friends. I can. He is able to bike very easily to his close friends that live nearby. Like, we're able to visit his par easily. I can get to my work really easy. A lot of my friends can easily access my house. A lot of people, when they have to buy a house for the first time, sacrifice on location. They sacrifice the location close to their family and friends in order to get closer to a house that they can afford at a size that they want, at the place that they want, whatever it is that they're trying to get at. And what that means is, like, often, eventually, maybe later on in life, you've become very rooted, but the act of buying a home usually actually moves you out of the community that you're already living in, because that's what happens when you have to change price points.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Yeah, you know, intellectually, I really get your case, But I think emotionally, it's hard for some people to let go of that dream of owning. And I think for most Americans, buying a home is a big part of what it means to be an adult and have made it, I guess, beyond that financial investment. What do you think is going on there? Why is home ownership so wrapped up in our identities as Americans?

[Jerusalem Dempsis]

To me, I think that homeownership was always a proxy for freedom. So similarly to car ownership and, like, being able to drive on the open road, these things are quintessentially American, in a good way of, like, you want freedom. You want freedom from a boss. You know, the ability to move around at will. Like, all these things are really, really great. And, like, I have felt like, how do you achieve that in a way that does not lock people into, like, fun, financially risky assets is monetary. Like, people need economic freedom. They need access to good jobs that pay well. They need access to a government that's gonna hold people accountable if they exploit tenants or workers. So to me, the American dream is always freedom. We've just always pushed this through homeownership. And my rejoinder to that is that I don't think homeownership is freedom for everyone. I don't feel free at the idea of owning an asset that that's that risky. Like, I know people who are underwater on their mortgages right now, and it's just like, is that freedom? Like, no, economic freedom is freedom. And so how we get there is a matter of policy and as a matter of technocratic debate, but I think we should reorient ourselves towards that rather than ownership. In particular.

[Jonathan (JQ) Hill]

Is there a question you have about the world we live in? Something you want explained on this show? We've explained things like why dating is so hard now and how to pick your insurance and what's up with all those scammy texts. What do you want to know more about? Give us a call 1-800-618-8545, or you can email us us@askvox vox.com we can't do it without you. Another way to help the show Become a VOX member. When you do, you support our work and you also get a ton of cool perks like listening to this podcast with no ads. To learn more and to get a cute little discount, head over to Vox.com members. This episode was produced by Myles Bryant and Kelly West. It was edited by Ginny Lawton and fact checked by Melissa Hirsch. Our executive producer is Miranda Kennedy and it was engineered by Adrian Lilly. This story was supported by a grant from Arnold Ventures. VOX had full discretion over the content of this reporting. I'm your host, Jonathan Hill. Thank you so much for listening. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.

[Rachel Cohen Booth]

SA.