The idiocy of encouraging everyone to become a homeowner is a fairly recent phenomenon. We are now seemingly all obsessed with owning property as a source of wealth rather than to provide shelter which is as stupid as the Tulip Mania in Holland in the 1600s and will inevitably end up with the same result.
Apart from providing employment for brickies and profit for builders, the fact that so many of us are spending money to pay our huge mortgages ( caused NOT by the lack of accommodation but by the stupidity of recent Governments with their economic policies to encourage everyman and his dog to 'get on the housing ladder' ) money is being sucked out of the economy which could otherwise be spent on goods and services or invested in business, upping our woeful productivity, and reducing the necessity of unrestricted immigration to pump-prime this Ponzi scheme of an economy, providing employment and actually allowing some of us a little enjoyment in spending our hard won earnings during our short time on this planet.