Fed Research Puts U.S. Adult Homeownership at 53% Versus 65% Census Rate

3 articles · Updated · CBS New York · Jul 23

53% of U.S. adults own homes under a new Minneapolis Fed measure, well below the roughly 65% rate commonly cited from Census owner-occupancy data.
The gap stems from methodology: Census counts owner-occupied households, while the homeowners-to-population ratio counts individual adult owners, excluding adults who live in a home owned by someone else.
About 14% of U.S. adults live in owner-occupied homes without owning the property, a group that includes adult children, relatives and roommates of homeowners.
State-level results are lower across the board and weakest in expensive markets, with California at 41.2% versus 55.9% on the traditional measure and New York at 43.3% versus 54.3%.
Researchers said the new metric could sharpen housing policy by showing affordability barriers are steeper than standard homeownership figures suggest.

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The Homeowners-to-Population Ratio: Rethinking U.S. Homeownership in the Age of Multigenerational Households

Overview

In 2024, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis introduced the homeowners-to-population ratio (HPOP) to give a clearer picture of homeownership in the U.S. Unlike traditional methods that count households, HPOP measures the share of all adults who actually own a home. This new approach avoids grouping everyone in a household as either an owner or renter, which can hide the true number of non-owning adults. As a result, HPOP reveals a gap in understanding the housing status of adults who live in owner-occupied homes but do not own them, offering a more accurate view of homeownership.

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