The American dream symbolizes many abstract ideals: hard work, assimilation, equal opportunity. But for generations it has meant one particular path in life: Get a job, save up for a down payment, and achieve the fairy-tale ending of domestic bliss and monthly mortgage payments.

Now, though, with soaring housing costs — along with student loan debt and inflation — homeownership is becoming increasingly inaccessible for young Americans.

As of June, according to Redfin, nearly 1 in 10 homes in the country were worth $1 million or more — a share that more than doubled since June 2019. And as prices rise, people are becoming first-time homeowners later in life. In a 2023 report from the National Association of Realtors, the median age for a first-time homebuyer was 35. In 1981, it was 29.

Even before the current housing crisis, people have been arguing that the American dream was disappearing, deteriorating, dying or dead. But perhaps it is simply changing.

A Cornerstone of the National Myth

In 1931, author James Truslow Adams published his bestselling history of the nation “The Epic of America.” On Page 404, he described the “American dream” as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” Adams brought the phrase into the American consciousness — and his definition didn’t involve a house.

Throughout the Great Depression, the phrase became “embedded in the national conversation as a cornerstone of the mythology of the United States,” according to Lawrence R. Samuel, author of “The American Dream: A Cultural History.” People were feeling that “America had lost its way, the Depression was a result of greed from the stock market and people are wondering what the country is all about.” Adams’ “American dream,” then, was “intended to sort of rescue the country from the concept that we should pursue wealth,” Samuel said.

But by the mid-1940s, a postwar economic boom brought a new definition of the successful American life. A slew of factors combined to make it far easier for white men to purchase homes: The 1944 GI Bill offered guaranteed loans for veterans to purchase homes — about a decade later, $33 billion in home loans had been given to veterans. Real estate developer Levitt & Sons created Levittown, a community of more than 17,000 cookie-cutter houses on Long Island that became a blueprint for affordable suburban development.

The “baby boom” and the Cold War put even more emphasis on the role of the home in American life.

The benefits of the postwar boom, however, weren’t equally distributed. Many of the new communities like Levittown didn’t originally let in families who weren’t white. Loans were disproportionately granted to white borrowers; Black veterans were excluded from many of the benefits of the GI Bill. Women were frequently denied mortgage applications if they didn’t have a male co-signer.

The prosperous postwar period that laid the groundwork for a housing boom ended with a recession in the 1970s. By the early 1980s, inequality also began to deepen.

Home prices continued to rise. According to census data, the median inflation-adjusted price of a single-family home reached $119,600 in 2000, up from $30,600 in 1940.

But the gender imbalance had also shifted. In the 2000s, single women were significantly outpacing single men in home purchases, as their educational attainment and income levels increased.

Then came the 2008 housing crisis. That year, more than 2.3 million homes across the country had at least one foreclosure filing. News reports referred to the American dream as “wounded” and “elusive.” By 2010, single-family home sales fell to the lowest since 1995, and instead of getting married and buying property, many people in their 20s were moving back in with their parents and delaying adulthood.

The emphasis was now on the “dream” part of the term — owning a home might not have felt as realistic for many, but it was still an aspiration.

‘I’d rather just call my landlord’

In a study published earlier this year, researchers at Minnesota State University Mankato asked around 500 baby boomers and millennials how they defined the American dream. The most common answer among boomers was having a home, but that was only the third most popular response among millennials. For the younger generation, the most common answer involved having a family, followed by having opportunities and reaching goals.

The explanation is largely material. Construction hasn’t kept up with the need for homes. And the shortage, some economists argue, is exacerbated by those boomers: Born in the right place at the right time, they’ve been able to own their homes, and they aren’t moving out of them. Investors are buying up available properties in high volumes, adding an extra layer of competition to the market. And in addition to high mortgage rates, the increased demand and the tightened supply have led to booming costs.

James Zarsadiaz, a 38-year-old history professor living in San Francisco, grew up in a home owned by his parents, but has no interest in saving up for one himself. “The garden needs tending, the pipes burst, we need to renovate the kitchen. There’s always a to-do list with homeownership,” he said. “It feels like a lot of work. I’d rather just call my landlord.”

There are, of course, serious downsides to renting forever. Being at the whim of a landlord who can raise your rent can be risky. And there’s a good reason buying property is still viewed as a surefire way to generate wealth: You put monthly payments toward a property that can one day be sold for a profit rather than paying it to a landlord.

But in today’s market, where mortgage rates are high and property taxes have been on the rise, there are all sorts of added risks. “All too many homeowners fail to anticipate the total cost of ownership, including insurance, property taxes and maintenance,” said Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst at Bankrate, who noted that many homeowners take on debt to pay for these “hidden costs.”

According to Kristin Scott, a professor of marketing and one of the Minnesota State University Mankato study’s authors, boomers are more concerned about “physical stuff,” such as houses and cars, whereas the younger generation’s answers were of more personal forms of achievement.

This all felt more in line with James Truslow Adams’ 1931 definition of the American dream as a vision for a country where life could be “better and richer and fuller” and “with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” A dream that people could define and shape for themselves.