To many people owning a home is the American Dream. But for 28 of americans who are in the market to buy a home, that dream may be unattainable, because they are not likely to qualify for a mortgage. According to a new study, 28. 4 of people who have applied or looked for a loan have a credit score of 620 or lower. 620 is the cutoff point. Tightening lending standards combined with short sales and foreclosure has brought Home Ownership down to 65 . Thats the lowest rate of homeownership since 1995. But the last few years of turmoil should have taught us something. That owning a home is for most people hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. For Many Americans its their primary tool for building wealth. But tell that to those who are still under water on their home loans. Owning a home has turned into an american nightmare for them. Sure the housing crisis was fuelled by aggressive Real Estate Agents and greedy lenders, and home buyers eager to borrow more than they can chew. Renting your home is a perfectly honorable thing to do. Americans [ technical difficulties ] tell me what you think by tweeting me at alreal money. Many of these are millenals, or the under 35 crowd. You would think they would be renters, but the average age of a first time home buyer is 31, and these days they are buying way less and renting way more than they used to. Reporter 32yearold dreams of one day owning a home. We all dream about buys. The friends that i have that havent purchased just dont have the savings or the salary to take the plunge. Reporter she has been warned with the looming threat of sequester, she could be laid off at anytime. I just know it wouldnt be smart to buy right now, probably wont be smart to buy in the next day or two. Reporter she is one of a growing number of millennials in buy. This is a economically challenged generation. The economy has not be producing enough highpaying jobs, and many are either unemployed , under ployed, or have jobs which dont pay sufficient levels of remuneration in order to purchase a home. Reporter economies james hughes says one big problem is student loan debt. It is like graduating from college and you are immediately subject to mortgage payments. So that makes it very difficult to take on a second debt load in the form of a mortgage. Reporter she has combined student dead and credit card loans of around 13,000. But its not just Economic Uncertainty that prevents her from buying. I dont have enough savings, first of all, to even think about putting a down payment. Reporter the share of young people getting their First Mortgage was chopped in half from 10 years ago, falling from 17 to just 9 . Its harder to get a mortgage today than it was during the housing bubble. Reporter as mortgage lending gets tighter, ben bernanke says it is the ma lennals who are hit hardest. During the housing bubble credit was so lose, Interest Rates were so low, we created these toxic financial products. Reporter after the bubble burst stricter lending standards checks. Renters face a lot of obstacles, but the biggest is payment. Reporter the average down payment in the 90s, was 20 . In 2006 that dropped to 4 or less. Now the average down payment is around 22 . The vast majority of young renters say they want to own some day. Reporter but for sean renting is a lifestyle choice. Financially i could buy a home if i wanted to. But right now i choose the rent just mostly for the flexibility, the mobility of getting to live in different places and areas in the city, possibly moving to country. Reporter for shawn buying a house seems like a risky financial decision. I see buying a house a questionable investment at this point in my life. And right now im invested in four businesses. And i chose to put my money into businesses rather than a house. Right now, im saving just for survival and that doesnt include a mortgage. So here is the question, is it really so bad to rent instead of buy . Does it mean you are not living the American Dream . Im not sure it is a bad thing to be a renter nation, but joining me now is an economist who is concerned about americas shift to being a renter nation. He is with welling far go who is the largest lender in the united states. Mark, you make a really compelling argument as to why owning is good over renting. Creation. Yes, it really does have to do with wealth creation. One of the best ways that america has built well is through owning a home, and unfortunately we really got away from that, we allowed folks to pull all of the equity out. A lot of people rushed into buying homes without really giving it a lot of thought, and it turned out to be an awful investment for them. It doesnt mean that everybody is and we dont think that everybody should should buy a home. Certainly there is a place for renters, particularly in some of the more expensive markets, and young people in general are going to rent until they settle down. It doesnt make as much sense to own a home when you are single and may relocate to some other part of the country. But as millennials age up and build savings, i think well see again. So as millennials built up some savings, that was the key to buying a house. You didnt just grab all of the equity that you made in it as home prices appreciated, took that out, and risked your capital . Absolutely, people used to have to save for a down payment, and so when they shop for a home, they spent a lot of time. Thats what we call selection bias. They were very careful. They looked at the best neighborhoods, and because they spent so much time looking for that home, they tended to make very good choices. In the last cycle, everybody was rushing to buy homes, simply because they felt the prices were going to go up so fast that if they waited they would miss the opportunity. It was nonsense. And many people who bought at the top are probably going to wait another decade or more mortgage. Right now it will take you 620 on your credit score at a minimum generally speaking to get a mortgage these days. The fact that mortgage standards have tightened, there are a lot of people that are very frustrated by that, is that a bad thing, not the philosophical concept of being a renter, but mortgage . Its not a bad thing that mortgage standards had tightened up. They had gotten way to easy. I was queasy when we got to 4 or 2 down. Because when you are only putting 2 down, you know, you get a lot of a lot of tricky that was going on in some markets. But most mortgages today that are that people are getting, are are sold in the secondary market. The mortgages are sold to fannie mae and freddie mac, and because they are still trying to dig themselves out of the hole they got into during the crisis, they are very stringent in terms of the criteria of the mortgages that they are going to buy. So really thats what is dictating the terms is fannie mae and freddie mac. And they have loosened up a little bit. Appraisals have normalized, a little bit of house appreciation as the markets are improving, but if you look at the raw numbers, home prices are up 10 , yet the number of people who own a home has dropped to 133,000, and that concerns me because we cant have a recovery in the homeowners. Good to talk to you mark. Here is an image that says lot about a story that we have been following that is clearly heating up. Jpmorgan jamie diamond showing his divers license to a security officer. He was there to talk to eric holer about settling various charges that may be filed against the bank. The settlement number appears to be 11 billion. But both sides are reportedly far apart so stay tuned. Five days until the initial enrollment process for o m begins. Im 53 years old, my last time for a full medical checkup was probably five years ago. I was doing pretty good at that time. I dont know what has hand over the last five years. That cab driver is going to every sunday night Al Jazeera America presents gripping films, from the worlds top documentary directors this is just the beginning of somthing much bigger. This sunday. The premier of budrus the primary concern of the fronts is security that trumps everything how could a wall designed to divide, unite israelis and palestinians Al Jazeera America presents. Budrus premiers this sunday night 9 eastern. On august 20th, Al Jazeera America introduced a new voice in journalism. Good evening everyone, welcome to al jazeera. Usa today says . Writes the columbia journalism review. And the daily beast says quality journalists once again on the air is a beautiful thing to behold. Al jazeera america, theres more to it. Millions who need assistance now. We appreciate you spending time with us tonight. Up next is the golden age of hollywood going golden but elsewhere. Why l. A. s mayor has declared a state of emergency for the Entertainment Industry there. Next. Two American Companies from two very different eras, facebook and jcpenney. Facebook is up an impressive 89 . And jcpenneys shares fell after the stock market closed. The stock value has been cut nearly in half this year. Okay. This liter of coke, obviously its a liter, obviously there is at least a liter of water in there, but it takes a lot more than the liquid you drink to manufacture the coke. As you know, water is something we care a lot about on this show. Coke knows in a world where water is scarce, heavy water can be a problem. I sat down with the ceo to discuss what coke is doing to bring clean water to the most remote parts of the world. For every liter of beverage that we actually use for making our beverages, filling our beverages, sanitizing our 1,000plus factories around the world, we will give back for every liter well give that liter back to the planet earth through technology, through recycling the water, before we give it back to the municipalities where we operate our plants, and the third is replenishment projects capturing rain water and waterharvesting projects around the world. This is interesting, because if my viewers are wondering where this fits into a money show, you have connected it to this whole commercial enterprise. Tell me about this echo center. Its a kiosk that house the slingshot unit that can produce up to 850 liters of clean water using solar power or power from bye biomass. It is is in connection with other companies. You have a company Mccann HealthMccann Health is providing Health Care Solutions to communities. So its all about creating these healthy communities, and a Woman Entrepreneur who will run this, and she will become the beacon of this community, hire more women, and that community then, with clean drink water, with women entrepreneurs, becomes a successful vibrant community. Somebody described it as downtown in a box. You go into a remote village that does not have access to clean water, and you plant this thing that looked to me like a shipping container. It actually is. Container. All right. You plunk it somewhere, and people will come to use the phones. And it will bring wifi to the area. Imagine the possibilities that it opens up to all of these communities around the world in places like india, indonesia, latin america, africa. So we have deployed in mexico, paragua paraguay, and south africa. Cocacola hopes to deploy between 1500 and 2,000 units of water puration systems, as well as those complete echo center containers in at least 20 countries by the end of 2015. They are hoping it will give access to clean water to about half a million of people. Okay. Your question for the day. And if you want to know more about tonights stories, log to our website, aljazeera. Com reelmoney. Thats our show for today. Thank you for joining us. Friday well take a look at the financial implications on hospitals under obamacare, and what it means for you. Im ali velshi. This is real money. Trying to break the deadlock or at that rains nuclear program. Deposidiplomats hold the first s in decades. I amii am elizabeth. Destroying syrias chemical weapons. The Security Council agrees on a draft ke resolution, mourning at the mall. Families wait on the bodies of loved ones killed during the that robey siege