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Home Ownership in America, 2001-2011

susan fiskeThe Foundation's U.S. 2010 Census project has released a new report on home ownership in America between 2001-2011. Here are some of the report's main findings:

• Between 2001 and 2011, the overall home ownership rate dropped by one percentage point. However, this small net change masks a general rise in ownership that peaked in 2005 and fell after that. For certain kinds of households – the least-educated, poorest, and non-Hispanic black households – the first half of the decade brought little, if any, growth while the second half of the decade resulted in devastatingly large losses. As a result, the gaps in ownership separating black from white households and households at the top and bottom of the education and income distributions widened considerably in this decade.

• The housing market collapse and ensuing Great Recession during the second half of the last decade also had a disproportionate impact on young adults, who typically begin the transition to home ownership in their late twenties and early thirties. In particular, Generation X (ages 25-34 in 2001) had the misfortune to pass a life-course stage typified by steep inclines in ownership during a period when becoming and remaining a homeowner was fragile. Generation Y (ages 25-34 in 2011), the most recent cohort to launch its housing career, is likely to fare even worse, as it faces numerous obstacles to entering the ownership market. Absent a dramatic shift in the economy and the housing market, the stalled progress of these cohorts threatens to have a permanent impact.

Read the full report.

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