U.S. Census: Homeownership Declines

As more Americans rent apartments and homes, the homeownership rate has declined to 67.8 percent this year.

That's a The percentage of households headed by homeowners has declined to 67.8 percent this year, down from 69.1 percent in 2005, according to U.S. census data gathered in March.
It is the sharpest decline in the homeownership rate in two decades, and is a significant shift away from the gains achieved by President Bush’s campaign begun in 2002 to create an “ownership society.”

Meanwhile, households headed by renters rose to 32.2 percent from 30.9 percent in 2005.

"We’re not going to see homeownership rates like that for a generation,” Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, a research company, told The New York Times.

Mr. Zandi says he thinksthat minority and lower-income homeowners had been hardest hit. Nearly three million minority families took out mortgages from 2002 to the first quarter of this year, housing officials say. Since minority families were more likely to receive subprime loans, economists believe these families account for a disproportionate share of foreclosures.

Source: The New York Times, Rachel L. Swarns (06/21/2008)