Home Ownership Rates Plummeting

Source: Citylab   The national home ownership rate has plummeted over the past decade, from an all-time high of 68.8 percent in 2005 to 62.7 percent in 2015. That’s lower than the rate in 1985, when home ownership stood at 63.5 percent. The shift from owning to renting a home is much more dramatic in certain cities, and the most innovative and dynamic metropolitan areas consistently post the lowest home ownership rates. This a product of the fact that these metros are more expensive, but it also speaks to their urban form. Having a larger stock of rental (usually multifamily) housing helps provide the flexibility required to absorb the young people and mobile talent that fuel their economies.

The next map sheds additional light on the great housing reset, charting the change in the home ownership rate between 2000 and 2015. While coastal superstar cities and knowledge hubs have the lowest overall rates of home ownership, the places with the biggest declines are mainly located in the Sunbelt and Rust Belt, where rates had the furthest to fall.The large metros with the biggest declines in home ownership are Tampa, Las Vegas, Miami, and Phoenix, all of which saw their home ownership rates decline by 7 or more percentage points.