Homeownership Experience of Younger Boomers

The homeownership experience of younger baby boomers is examined in a new report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Patterns of Homeownership, Delinquency, and Foreclosure among the Youngest Baby Boomers. The BLS analysis is based on data collected by the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, which has tracked a cohort of Americans aged 23 to 31 at the start of the survey and aged 43 to 51 in the most recent time period.

In the age group, 74 percent were homeowners in 2008. Among the 2008 homeowners, 93 percent still owned a home in 2010. Six percent fell delinquent on their mortgage payments at some point between 2008 and 2010, 2 percent received a foreclosure notice, and 1 percent lost their home due to foreclosure. Not surprisingly, those who reported having negative equity in their home in 2008 were most likely to have lost their home due to foreclosure by 2010 (8 percent). In contrast, among those who reported having more than 40 percent equity in their home in 2008, only 0.3 percent had lost their home due to foreclosure by 2010.