A very timely article, with helpful info. Whilst corporations buy up available properties, or charge massive maintenance fees for condo owners in shared communities, and houses are increasingly unaffordable, renters are stuck with the only affordable option of renting. Over a period of 20 years, renters could pay as much as $200,000, which was in the 1990s double the cost of a cheap house in a major urban area, and in the 1970s it was as much as 15x the cost of a cheap house. Now it's increasingly rare to have children, so who would inherit a house when your dead? Perhaps sell the house as part of one's retirement plans, and then live in assisted living? Sure, but only if you're lucky enough to avoid equity loans and to pay off that 25-year mortgage. I hope the housing bubble busts, however. Every couple or family should have their own home.