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Homeownership Rate
About This Indicator
What Is the Homeownership Rate?
The share of households that own their home, from the Census Bureau quarterly since 1964, whether they owe most of it or none.
Why Does It Matter?
Home equity is the typical middle-class family's biggest store of wealth, and this says who managed to own a home.
What It Says
It held near 63% to 66% until the mid-1990s, climbed to 69.2% in 2004 as lending loosened, and fell to 62.9% by 2016. A pandemic change in who answered likely added to the spring 2020 jump.
Can Politics Influence It?
Federal lending rules reach it, and so does the mortgage interest deduction, which only households that itemize their deductions can take. Interest rates and zoning decide more.
Key Idea
The rate is a share of households: when young adults stay with parents, the renting households they would have formed never appear, and the rate can rise without anyone buying a home.
Not Scored
Source: Census Bureau. Housing Vacancy Survey: EITS hv from 1965, Table 14 for 1964.
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