The fundamental difference between homeownership versus Home-Owner-Ism

From The Daily Mail (of all places!):

A third of middle-class parents are hoping house prices fall to help their children buy their first home. The research finding highlights the widespread fear that the children of today are facing a lifetime of renting. That contrasts with today's householders, many of whom were able to buy their homes at relatively low prices.

The study, from the National Housing Federation*, also found that nearly 60 per cent of parents feel obliged to give their children money for a deposit. They expect to hand over at least £20,000 to each of their children to get them on to the property ladder - in what is known as raiding the 'Bank of Mum and Dad'.

The research is based on a poll of more than 500 middle-class parents with children between the ages of 20 and 30. They have been the winners of the house price boom over the past decade - but their children are the losers. And they expect that the only chance that their children have of buying their own home is for them to hand over a substantial amount of money.

In 1997, the average home cost £68,500. Today, the figure stands at nearly £168,000. The increase of £100,000 is well ahead of inflation and equivalent to four times the national average salary...

So a third of homeowners actually believe in homeownership - they want their children to be able to afford to buy a house under their own steam, and for their children to take on the risks and rewards of this (the way it should be, and the way it was for the over-forties), even at the expense of losing an illusory paper capital gain themselves. Sixty per cent are clearly Home-Owner-Ists - people who are stupid enough to want to keep the house price bubble going.

If it were up to me, I'd far rather lose £20,000 of the 'value' of my house (which costs me nothing) than have to reduce my savings/increase my own mortgage by £40,000 (assuming I have two children in the 20 - 30 age bracket), but hey, I'm Mr Sensible.

* The National Housing Federation is the umbrella lobbying body for taxpayer-financed Housing Associations, so they are firmly in the "We own land! Give us money!" camp, but let's assume that these findings are broadly correct.