Housing != home ownership. Anyway, I have read this a few places, but here is the first link I found. "Regions with higher home ownership created fewer new businesses, had longer commute times, and lower rates of labor mobility." http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/05/08/the-deep-do...

Further, GDP is a very short term view of the economy. Daycare is a classic example where going from an informal to formal system nominally increases GDP much more than the net increase in value.