Despite rosy reports that the housing market is improving, new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show that the rate of homeownership continued to fall in the first quarter.
The national homeownership rate of 63.7% was 0.3 percentage points lower than the fourth quarter of 2014, when it was 64.0%, and 1.1 percentage points lower than the first quarter of 2014, when it was 64.8%.
The homeowner vacancy rate was highest in the South (2.2%) and lowest in the West (1.2%), according to the report. The vacancy rates in the Northeast (1.8%) and Midwest (1.9%) were not statistically different from each other.
The homeowner vacancy rate in the West was lower when compared to the first quarter of 2014. The vacancy rates in the Northeast, Midwest and South were not statistically different from the rates last year.
The national vacancy rate for rentals in the first quarter was 7.1%, which was 0.1 percentage points higher compared to the fourth quarter of 2014 but 1.2 percentage points lower compared to the first quarter of 2014.
The national vacancy rate for homeowner housing was 1.9% – about the same as the fourth quarter and about 0.1 percentage points lower compared to the first quarter of 2014.
For the first quarter, the rental vacancy rate was highest in the South (8.8%), followed by the Midwest (7.8%). The rental vacancy rate was lowest in the Northeast (5.4%) and West (5.3%), though these rates in these two regions were not statistically different from each other.
The national homeownership rate began to fall in 2006 after peaking at around 69.1% in 2005, according to the Census Bureau.
Of note, the national homeownership rate for people aged under 35 fell to a new low of 34.6% in the first quarter – down from 35.3% in the fourth quarter of 2014 and down from 40.4% in the fourth quarter of 2009.