Whenever people talk about the American dream, a house and a backyard are usually at the center of the picture. * It wasn't always this way For much of American history homeownership tended to be a fairly low priority historians say The very wealthy bought homes, the middle classes tended to rent and the poor either rented or built their own shacks. Overall, until the 1940s, homeownership rates generally hovered between 20 percent and 30 percent. * This is still true in a number of countries. A number of countries have rates as high as the United States' 67 percent or higher (Singapore hit 89 percent in 2009, according to Singapore government statistics), but far from all do. * Nor does it necessarily correlate with wealth: In Romania, homeownership is 96.5 percent, although annual per capita income is around $2,900 per year, according to 2011 European Union housing statistics. Meanwhile, in nearby Switzerland, average gross domestic product (GDP) is $24,639 but homeownership is roughly 40 percent, according to 2010 Swiss government figures. * Homeownership became part of the American dream because it fused a number of other American dreams, historians say: immigrant dreams, first of all, as 19th-century laborers scrimped and saved for a tiny bit of security. Later, the dreams of reformers, who preached homeownership would build healthier families and politicians' dreams of social stability. But finally and most of all, its invention had to do with the gamble of a certain Hudson Valley homeowner in the 1930s. Home, sweet home
