The Decade-Long Growth in Rentership Is Reversing

A decade-long surge in rentership spanning the later years of the housing boom, the entirety of the housing bust and the early years of the subsequent recovery came to an abrupt end in 2016, according to an analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Homeownership and Housing Vacancy Survey.

Between Q4 2006 and Q2 2016, renters accounted for all new households in the United States – over that time, the number of owner households nationwide fell by 1.76 million while the number of renter households increased by 9.72 million.

But over the past two years, the trend has reversed and rentership has been on the decline. From Q2 2016 to Q2 2018, the number of renter households has declined by 754,000 while the number of owner households has increased by 3.13 million.

Rent appreciation has slowed considerably over the past two years while home value appreciation has remained very sharp. Most research points to supply trends as the primary explanation for this divergence, but these data suggest that demand is also at play.