Secret #6 – U.S. Home Ownership Fell More During the Great Recession than During the Great Depression
The U.S. home ownership rate only fell 4.2 percentage points from 1930 to 1940 because going into the Great Depression about 2/3rds of home owners owned their homes free-and-clear.
The U.S. home ownership rate fell 5.6 percentage points from the peak in 2004 to the bottom in 2016 because going into the Great Recession only about 1/3rd of U.S. home owners owned their homes free-and-clear.
(Data talk.)
I am thoroughly enjoying these posts, they are quite enlightening. But they have me wondering... are you of the mindset that our homeownership rates should be higher? Because I can tell you after nearly 40 years of originating mortgages, I have come to the realization that roughly 4 out of 10 people should continue as renters and not own the home they live in. Now maybe that can be chalked up to our inferior education system... why don't we teach basic finance in high school? Finance is a language all its own yet while many high schools require foreign language studies - and who do you know that became even somewhat fluent from that? - finance isn't taught at all. Maybe there's some of it these days, but growing up, there was zero. Until we make a change to our education system, there will always be a percentage of the population that cannot exercise the financial discipline to own a home. That said, I do agree with your assessment that creating tax benefits to landlords increases the supply of rental properties potentially to the detriment of want-to-be homebuyers. But if those tax breaks are removed, don't you feel it would cause a collapse of real estate values? Personally, I feel the 30 year mortgage is to blame for escalated values & being close-ended is why so many boomers still have sizeable mortgage balances. I'm doing my share by coaching people into open ended first mortgages that can be aggressively paid down knowing your funds can be re-accessed if needed. Keep up the good work!