The national home-ownership rate ticked up by 0.8 percentage points to 63.7% in the second quarter compared to the same time last year, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. On a quarter-to-quarter basis, however, the rate was not statistically different from the rate in the first quarter 2017 (63.6 percent).
National vacancy rates in the second quarter 2017 were 7.3% for rental housing and 1.5% for homeowner housing. The rental vacancy rate was 0.6 percentage points higher than the rate in the second quarter 2016 (6.7%) and 0.3 percentage points higher than the rate in the first quarter 2017 (7.0%). The homeowner vacancy rate of 1.5% was 0.2 percentage points lower than the rates in the second quarter 2016 and the first quarter 2017 (1.7% each).
Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, reacted to the news with a statement: “The homeownership rate rose by a decimal point to 63.7% over the quarter, but there was a more worthy gain of a near full percentage point from one year ago. The addition of 1.2 million households being homeowners is clearly a good news, as more households are participating in housing equity gains.”
Yun pointed out that there are fewer homeowners today compared to a decade ago, while renter households have risen by 8 million.
