New Data Could Signal The Return of Millennial Homeowners

• February 5th 2018

by Nena Perry-Brown

While the share of renter households has grown steadily since the recession, recent data shows the pendulum beginning to swing in the opposite direction.

According to Zillow, the fourth quarter of 2017 saw the strongest increase in household formation since 2015 with 1.1 million new households formed. More notable, however, is the fact that homeowners represented 1.04 million of those new households. Nationwide, the homeownership rate reached 64.2 percent last quarter, bringing it in line with rates seen in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Millennials seem to be increasingly able to get a foothold in homeownership, with adults under the age of 35 leading the increase in homeowner household formation. The homeownership rate for this age bracket increased by 1.3 percent to 36 percent year-over-year, the largest year-over-year increase since the final quarter of 2004.

Meanwhile, although the number of renter households increased marginally from Q3 to Q4 2017, there was actually a 0.2 percent decrease in renter households year-over-year, the third consecutive quarter in annual decreases. This three-quarter span is the longest stretch of consecutive renter household decreases since 2004-2005.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/homeownership-rate-back-to-early-1990s-pre-bubble-levels/13531.