The homeownership rate in the United States has declined steadily over the past decade, touching 50-year lows in early 2016. But some booming and still relatively affordable parts of the country are bucking the national trend, according to an analysis of 2015 American Community Survey data.
The homeownership rate in the United States has declined steadily over the past decade, touching 50-year lows in early 2016. But some booming and still relatively affordable parts of the country are bucking the national trend, according to an analysis of 2015 American Community Survey data.
Among the nation’s 100 largest metros, almost half (48) had a roughly stable homeownership rate between 2014 and 2015. One quarter experienced homeownership rate declines of more than 0.5 percentage points, and 27 percent saw the homeownership rate increase by more than 0.5 percentage points.
The largest jumps in the homeownership rate were in Baton Rouge, La. (+3.9 percentage points), Springfield, Mass. (+2.4 percentage points), Fort Myers, Fla. (+2.3 percentage points), Portland, Ore. (+1.6 percentage points), McAllen, Texas (+1.5 percentage points), Birmingham, Al. (+1.4 percentage points), Charleston, S.C. (+1.4 percentage points) and Nashville, Tenn. (+1.2 percentage points) (figure 1).
The largest declines were in Colorado Springs, Colo. (- 2 percentage points), Knoxville, Tenn. (-2 percentage points), Tulsa, Okla. (-1.5 percentage points), Lakeland, Fla. (-1.4 percentage point), Spokane, Wash. (-1.3 percentage points), Buffalo, N.Y. (-1.2 percentage points), Winston-Salem, N.C. (-1.1 percentage points), Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (-1.1 percentage points), Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn. (-1 percentage point), and New Orleans, La. (-1 percentage point).
Regionally, economically booming and still relatively affordable Western markets (at least, affordable compared to some Bay Area and Southern California markets) including Portland, Denver and Seattle experienced large increases in the homeownership rate. At the city level, the homeownership rate also increased in Portland (51.4 percent to 54 percent), Denver (48.1 percent to 49.4 percent) and Seattle (45.5 percent to 46.6 percent). In all three cities the increase was driven by large jumps in the number of homeowners (3.6 percent for Portland, 4.4 percent for Denver and 4.6 percent for Seattle). In the cities of Portland and Denver, the number of renter households contracted by 6.6 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. The number of renter households edged higher by 0.1 percent in the city of Seattle.
Markets in California’s Central Valley which experienced large drops in homeownership during the foreclosure crisis – including the metros of Vallejo, Stockton, Modesto, Merced and Fresno – also saw a pickup in the homeownership rate. Homeownership in these areas was perhaps buoyed by households priced out of the San Francisco and San Jose markets.
