Fewer Americans own homes than thought, new Fed search finds

Only about 53% of U.S. adults own homes, far below the commonly cited 65% homeownership rate, according to new Federal Reserve research that paints a starker picture of access to homeownership.

The traditional homeownership rate, tracked by the U.S. Census Bureau, measures the share of occupied homes in which the owner lives. The new measure from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, called the homeowners-to-population ratio, or HPOP, instead calculates the share of adults who own a home.

Take a married couple who own a house and whose adult son still lives with them. The Census measure classifies the household as owner-occupied, even though the son does not own the property.

That approach can create the impression that everyone living in such a household is a homeowner. About 14% of U.S. adults live in owner-occupied homes without owning the property, according to the Minneapolis Fed researchers.

These can include adult children living with their parents, siblings or parents living with adult relatives or people living with a roommate who owns the property.

As a result, the commonly cited rate can obscure the fact that more than one in eight U.S. adults live in an owner-occupied home without owning one. The researchers say HPOP provides a clearer picture by distinguishing between the share of homes occupied by their owners and the share of adults who own property.

“We should be in agreement about what it is we’re talking about, and when you hear that the homeownership rate is about two-thirds of Americans, you take that to mean two-thirds of adults are homeowners, which is factually not true,” Erik Hembre, senior economist at the Minneapolis Fed and a co-author of the report, told CBS News.

Policies could be improperly designed “if you’re not measuring the right thing” and they’re responding to flawed data, Hembre added. 

An outside economist said HPOP also underscores how steep the barriers to homeownership have become.

“It’s a signal of the fact that homeownership is becoming less affordable in the U.S., which we knew in general, but the strength of this phenomenon is more accentuated by the new measure,” Francesco D’Acunto, a professor of real estate at Georgetown University who wasn’t involved in the paper, told CBS News. “It tells us the problem is even worse than we knew.”

HPOP finds actual homeownership is lower in every U.S. state than previously thought, with the lowest rates in states with high housing prices.

In California, for example, the HPOP is 41.2%, compared to the owner-occupancy rate of 55.9%. In New York, 43.3% of adults own homes, versus 54.3% of New Yorkers who live in owner-occupied housing.