2011_0919_packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

From 1900 through 1930, homeownership levels fluctuated from 45to 48 percent, until the Great Depression and World War U brought it down to 43 percent in 1940. Following the war, the great suburbanization of the United States raised homeownership over the next two decades to 62 percent in 1960, driven by booming eoonomy, rising real incomes, favorable tax laws, a rejuvenated homebuiLding industry, and easier financing. One factor in this decline is demographics. 'The Harvard Joint Center notes: Merno_qraphic forces–especl all.y the shift toward minorities, who have rnLich lower ownership rates than whites—in fact worked a_qal'nsthomeownership _qal ns. Indeed, If homeownership rates �a_qe, racelethn�t.y, and hoLisehold t-yPe had rernainedat7995 levels'oemo_yraphic trends alone wou/d have reobced the homeownership rate byaftu// peroenta_qe point over mh1speriod. [The State of the Nation's HoLjsl'n_q 2009, page 13.) The recession has accelerated this decline, largely through the influence of rising fore- closures and the drop in new household formations noted above. For all these reasons, the homeownership rate is likely to tsLL beck to the low 60 per.- cent range, where it was before 1990. This is also the range predicted by Sam Zell, the billionaire Chicago real estate 'investor, at a UL| meeting in New York City in January 2010. Arthur C. Nelson, director of the Metropolitan Research Center atthe University of Utah, has also suggested that this is where the rate will finally settle. To put this in perspective, homeownership rates in the European Union range from the low 40 percent range to 85 percent in Spain. 'There appears to be no magical rate that produces a stable economy and community, and the experience of the 30 years from 1960 to 1990.----when the country prospered despite homeownership rate in the low