Homeownership Statistics (2026)

The US homeownership rate was 65.0% in the second quarter of 2026, the same as a year earlier and not statistically different from 65.3% in the first quarter. In broader terms, the Federal Reserve finds 63% of US adults owned their home in 2025, 27% rented, and 9% neither owned nor rented.

The rate has stayed range-bound for two decades: it peaked at 69.2% during the 2004 housing bubble and bottomed at 63.4% in 2016, its lowest since the 1960s. It tracks income closely, from 33% for adults earning under $50,000 to 86% for those earning $100,000 or more (2025).

The market is tight on the ownership side and looser on rentals. In the second quarter of 2026 the homeowner vacancy rate was just 1.2%, while the rental vacancy rate was 7.3%.

A low homeowner vacancy rate is part of why prices have stayed elevated: there simply are not many homes sitting empty and available to buy.

Ownership rises steeply with age. The Federal Reserve puts the rate at 24% for adults aged 18 to 29, 58% for 30 to 44, 76% for 45 to 59, and 83% for those 60 and older in 2025 (see the table below).

Census data by household head tells the same story: 35.2% for those under 35 versus 78.6% for those 65 and older in the second quarter of 2026, with the under-35 rate lower than a year earlier.

By generation, the 2025 rates were 27.1% for Gen Z, 55.4% for millennials, 72.7% for Gen X, and 79.9% for baby boomers (see the table below).

These raw rates mostly reflect age; the more revealing comparison is generations at the same age, below.

Comparing generations at the same age shows how much harder buying young has become. At 28, Gen Z's ownership rate (38.3%) is a touch higher than millennials were (36.8%), but below Gen X (42.5%) and boomers (44.4%) at that age.

The gap widens by the mid-30s: at 36, millennials are at 57.2%, versus 61.2% for Gen X and 63.7% for boomers at the same age.

A wide and persistent racial gap runs through the data. The Federal Reserve reports ownership rates of 72% for White adults, 66% for Asian, 48% for Hispanic, and 44% for Black adults in 2025 (see the chart below).

By the NAR's annual measure, the Black-White homeownership gap stood at 28 percentage points and has widened since 2013, even though Black homeownership recently posted the largest single-year gain of any group, and Hispanic homeownership has risen most over the past decade.

Disability is another sharp divide: about 55% of adults with a disability owned their home in 2025, versus 67% of those without one, per the Federal Reserve.

The gap reflects lower average incomes and higher housing-accessibility costs among households with a disability.

The first rung of the ladder is getting harder to reach. The NAR reports the first-time buyer share fell to a record-low 21%, and their median age hit an all-time high of 40; the median repeat buyer is 62 (see the table below).

First-time buyers' median down payment reached 10%, the highest since 1989, and the first-time share of the market has roughly halved since 2007.

Even so, younger buyers gained ground in 2025 as some older owners stepped back. Buyers aged 19 to 29 made up 18.5% of purchases (up from 14.4% the year before), and those in their 30s made up 26%.

Buyers 60 and older, meanwhile, fell to 23% of purchases, down from 30%, as high prices and rates dampened trade-up and downsizing activity.

Prices are at records. The median existing-home price hit an all-time high of $440,600 in June 2026. By September it was $417,500, up 1.3% from a year earlier and the 39th consecutive month of year-over-year gains, and the median new house sold in August 2026 was $393,700, per the Census Bureau.

Volume remains depressed: existing-home sales ran at a 3.99 million annualized pace in September 2026, down 2.2% year over year, with 4.8 months of inventory, still below the 5-to-6 months considered a balanced market.

Affordability has cratered. The national home-price-to-income ratio reached about 4.7 to 5.1 (roughly five times median income), versus the 2.6 experts consider affordable, and none of the 50 largest metros meets that affordable threshold.

By the NAHB's 2026 priced-out analysis, about 88.2 million US households cannot afford a median-priced new home of $413,595 at a 6% mortgage rate, and nearly two-thirds of households earn less than $106,000, short of the income needed to qualify for one.

Financing costs have reset the math. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 7.40% in the week of October 15, 2026, the highest weekly reading of the year and up from 6.27% a year earlier. Rates had fallen as low as 5.98% in late February before climbing through the summer; the September average was 6.86%, roughly double the pandemic-era lows near 3% (see the chart below).

In historical context that is not unusually high; the long-run average since 1971 is about 7.7%. About 64% of homeowners carried a mortgage in 2025, per the Federal Reserve.

The rate reset shows up in payments. The Federal Reserve puts the median monthly mortgage payment at $1,600 in 2025, up from $1,500 in 2024, and $2,300 for owners who moved in 2024 or 2025, with wide regional variation: recent movers paid $1,800 in the Midwest and $2,950 in the West (see the table below).

By the NAHB/Wells Fargo Cost of Housing Index it took 34% of the $106,800 median family income to afford the payment on a median-priced new home in the second quarter of 2026, up from 32% in the first quarter (and 36% on an existing one), and roughly a quarter of new borrowers spend at least 30% of income on their mortgage.

Homeownership remains the biggest wealth divide in America. The average homeowner's net worth is about $430,000, versus roughly $10,000 for renters, a 43-to-1 gap (see the chart below).

The gap is widening: since 2019, homeowner wealth has grown about 46% versus 37% for renters, and renters' net worth actually fell from 2022 to 2025 while owners' rose.

The flip side of high prices is record equity. Mortgaged US homeowners held about $17 trillion in home equity, of which roughly $11.5 trillion is tappable, or about $302,000 per owner ($195,000 of it tappable) (see the table below).

That accumulated equity is why the own-versus-rent decision compounds so heavily over a lifetime.

Housing costs are stretching budgets on both sides. Harvard's Joint Center finds 22.7 million renter households (49%) are cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of income on housing, and 12.1 million (26%) are severely burdened (see the table below).

Owners are strained too: 20.7 million homeowners are cost-burdened, up about 4 million since 2019.

Rents have climbed sharply. The Federal Reserve puts median rent at $1,200 in 2025, unchanged from 2024 but up from $1,100 in 2023, and $1,300 for recent movers, ranging from $915 in the Midwest to $1,450 in the West (see the table below).

The strain is growing and uneven: 23% of renters fell behind on rent at some point in 2025, up from 21% in 2024 and 19% in 2023, including nearly one-third of renters earning under $50,000 versus 5% of those earning $100,000 or more.

The barriers to buying are concrete. Among renters, 68% say they cannot afford a down payment, 49% cannot afford the monthly mortgage, and 42% cannot qualify for one; 39% simply prefer to rent.

The aspiration gap is stark: 71.5% of renters say they would prefer to own, yet only about 33.9% believe they ever will, a record low.

Down payments scale with wealth and repeat ownership. First-time buyers put down a median of 10% while repeat buyers put down 23%, and 30% of repeat buyers pay all cash.

First-time buyers fund those down payments mostly from personal savings (59%), followed by other financial assets (26%) and gifts or loans from family (22%).

Rates vary enormously by geography. West Virginia has the highest state homeownership rate at 78.1%, while New York is the lowest at 52.2%; California sits at 55.3%, Hawaii at 60.6%, and Washington, DC, at 40.3%.

The pattern tracks affordability: in the most affordable states, such as Iowa, it takes under four years of household income to buy a typical home, versus far more in the priciest coastal metros.