Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Well, the fabled American Dream once included a long list of items, like a steady job, benefits, a spouse, a couple kids, an annual vacation, a car, and owning a home.

But for too many these days, achieving that last

aspect of the American dream, owning a home is more of a nightmare. Recently, CNBC reported that

the average age of homebuyers in the U.S. is now 56 years old. According to the National

Association of Realtors, that's up from an average of 49 years old just late last summer.

Over the same period of time, the median age of first-time home buyers rose from 35 to 38,

while the share of first-time buyers in the market fell from 32% to just 24%.

That's the lowest number in the four decades that the association has kept

records. The median home price in America is now a whopping $435,000. That's an increase of about

40% since 2020. And adding insult to injury in that same period of time, the average interest rate for a fixed

rate mortgage is more than double, and a typical down payment now equals the median household

income in America. As one lending director told CNBC, quote, in my two decades in the mortgage

business, I've never seen a more difficult time for millennials to purchase a home, end quote.

Now, home ownership is a worldview issue for at least a few reasons, but especially because of the

relationship it has in our cultural context with starting and raising a family. America currently

faces the lowest rates of childbearing and some of the lowest rates of marriage on record.

And anything that hinders family life in this way is a barrier in urgent need of removal.

As the American Enterprise Institute's Tim Carney recently noted,

astronomical housing prices are one of many factors that have made our society family unfriendly.

Together, with other changing norms around parenting and travel sports and bad urban planning,

...