I see the “home ownership rate” misquoted a lot, including in the Noahpinion piece posted yesterday.
The home ownership rate as defined by the census is the “the percentage of homes that are occupied by the owner. It is not the percentage of adults that own their own home.” (Wiki)[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeownership_in_the_United_States).
This means the home ownership rate won’t reflect things like adults living with their parents, or multiple roommates who all don’t own a home.
If you dig into the CPS-APEC microdata and look at all adults, not only do you find a lower home ownership rate, you also find a very different trend. Defining homeowners as people who own a home and their spouses, the home ownership rate is about 53%.
This data comes from John Voorheis (a principal economist at the Census Bureau) in this twitter thread that covers the topic better than I can.
Posted by Stanley–Nickels
4 Comments
You will own nothing and be happy, unironically. Lawn maintenance? 18 years of childrearing? Nope
The share of 25-34 year olds owning a home has dropped from 50% to 27% in two generations.
https://preview.redd.it/yan0q3ggpnjd1.jpeg?width=914&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=56f19d2394913d13a448fab46b9d3abf56006617
You might be inclined to chalk this up to increased education, but the drop was twice as steep for those without a bachelor’s degree.
What are householders? Does it mean you pay for housing?
> Defining homeowners as people who own a home and their spouses Might not move the needle that much, but there are around [20M](https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/marino-age-variation-cohabitation-2020-fp-22-28.html#:~:text=Cohabitation%20among%20unmarried%20partners%20has,Social%20and%20Economic%20Supplement%202022) “unmarried cohabitators” in the US. Of course, many are likely renters, but it’s not unusual for a long term couple to buy a house together even if they are not legally married