First-Time Homebuyer Watch: 4th Quarter 2021

Homeownership rate of householders aged 30 to 34, fourth quarter 2021: 48.6%

Homeownership rates in the final quarter of 2021 were little changed from rates in the previous three quarters and well below the levels recorded in 2020—when the coronavirus pandemic greatly reduced the response rate to the Census Bureau's Housing Vacancy Survey and consequently distorted homeownership trends.  

The overall homeownership rate in the fourth quarter of 2021 was 65.5 percent, nearly identical to the rate in the second and third quarters of 2021. The nation's homeownership rate peaked at 69.0 percent in 2004.

The homeownership rate of 30-to-34-year-olds (the age group in which householders typically buy their first home) continued to bobble well below the 50 percent level (the rate was 48.2, 48.0, 48.9, and 48.6 in each of the four quarters of 2021). Except for the 50.1 percent blip in the third quarter of 2020, the homeownership rate of 30-to-34-year-olds has been below 50 percent in every quarter since 2011—the aftermath of the Great Recession. Until 2011, the age group's homeownership rate had never sunk below 50 percent in the data series that began in 1982. 

A sneak peak at the annual homeownership rate for 2021 (the official numbers will be released in March) shows a decline in homeownership in every age group between 2020 and 2021. But the 2020 rates were artificially inflated by the pandemic. Comparing 2021 annual rates to those of 2019 reveals an uptick in most age groups.

Source: Census Bureau, Housing Vacancy Survey