If you're owning a home just to live in and the value has been consistently unchanged... I would question whether it is the right move to buy instead of rent.
However, if you are owning to have a legacy/nest egg for your future (or the financial future of your heirs) then I think it is a good thing to be smart and educated on buying and actually going through with it.
My parents, in the late 70s, clearly weren't thinking about anything other than having a place in the best place they could afford... so they purchased a Co-Op in Fort Greene Brooklyn. The neighborhood wasn't great but it was better than what was available. [I have stories where my mother, waiting for a cab on the way to vacation, was robbed at gun point, and had all of her luggage and her friend's luggage taxed right in the community parking lot]
Now, over 30 years later, the property is worth over $600,000+ and going up as it's located in one of the hottest markets in Brooklyn.
Since I'm going to inherit the place, I now have many options with what i can do with the property.
We should be looking at owning property in areas that we expect to have an upturn in development to ride the wave of prosperity.
If you are a person willing to own now for the reason of legacy... I'd seriously consider looking at property in the Bronx, close to the border of Manhattan, and living and sitting... waiting for that development that will come.
Clearly, you don't want your children swept up in the tornado of poor community development(at the time) and a systematically flawed education/justice system. I was lucky in terms of the support and family structure, but my brother(RIP) wasn't.
Not absolutely pushing the "own" strategy but it shouldn't be shunned outright.
