Geographies and changes in homeownership in the United States, 1970-2020

초록

Homeownership has long been an important component of housing policy initiatives. U.S. national homeownership has remained relatively stagnant at around 65% from the establishment of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in 1965 through the 2020s, prompting discussion about the effectiveness of related policies. Given the limited understanding of long-term housing trajectories, this study examines the trends and geographies of the number of owner-occupied housing units (the Number), homeownership (the percentage of owner-occupied units among all occupied units), population, and households from 1970 to 2020. Nationally, both the Number (39.8 million to 80.1 million) and households (63 million to 126.8 million) roughly doubled, while homeownership remained relatively stable (63.0% to 63.1%). This suggests that sizable expansions in housing stock do not translate into higher homeownership, whereas declines are more likely when housing growth lags behind increases in households. The Number, households, and population were closely related, although population grew more slowly, increasing by about 1.6 times compared with 2 times for the former two measures. Disparities in the Number widened across the country and within states despite stable national homeownership rates. Meanwhile, homeownership exhibited reduced spatial clustering and declines particularly in regions experiencing rapid housing and population growth. Overall, the expansion of the U.S. housing supply broadly kept pace with household growth and accommodated declining household sizes nationally, although regional divergences in homeownership outcomes remained. This study identifies where and when housing divergences emerged and highlights the need to better align housing development with regional and demographic dynamics to support homeownership attainment.

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