In addition to talking about housing bubbles, another topic that is becoming popular among housing scaremongers is the ongoing decline in the U.S. homeownership rate. Remarks range from the direct, “American homeownership is at its lowest level in more than two decades,” to the downright inflammatory, “Rental surge to drop homeownership rate to 61.3% by 2030”. When I read statements like this it always drives me to dig into the data to see what is really going on.
The data that everyone uses to track homeownership is provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, which publishes quarterly stats on ownership rates dating back to 1965. As you can see in the chart below, the rate remained remarkably stable between 1965, when it registered at 62.9%, and 1994, when it was 63.8%. For the purposes of this discussion, I have highlighted three presidential terms: two under President Clinton…
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