In the 20 years from 1991 to 2011, the number of owner-occupied homes grew from 59.8 million to 76.1 million, a gain of 27 percent, while the number of renter-occupied homes rose from 33.4 million to 38.8 million, according to surveys conducted by the U. S. Department of Housing and Development (HUD) and conducted by the Census Bureau. While rental demand has been swelling since the Great Recession, the long term trend of owner-occupied homes continues to move upward, according to usnews.com. As the graph shows, homeownership starts shooting up after 45 years, while those in their twenties do not have the income growth—and many have student debt—to achieve homeownership status.

Meanwhile, the number of renters aged 45-64 has also risen due in part to an aging population, and because of the many foreclosures that hit this market during the housing breakdown. Household size has fallen in those 20 years: Single-person households rose from 31 to 36 percent; married-couple families who own their homes fell from 66 percent to 60 percent as the number of children under 18 dropped from 37 percent to 31 percent.

Commentator Robert Dietz, an economist with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), tells MHProNews U. S. housing policy needs to address these demographic shifts. As more seniors tend to stay in their homes, remodeling will be necessary to meet changing life-cycle needs. He supports replacing Fannie and Freddie with the Johnson-Crapo housing finance reform measure, and says younger homebuyers pay the most mortgage interest as a share of their income, and are the ones most affected by changes in housing policy.

As Paul Bradley of ROC USA (resident-owned communities) notes from Harvard University’s Joint Center on Housing report in an article for MHProNews, by 2040 one in eight Americans will be over 75, and as housing costs grow in relation to income, the doorway becomes wider for people to choose manufactured housing. Bradley suggests manufactured housing communities could develop great support networks and services for the aging population.  ##

(Graphic credit: usnews.com/American Housing Survey/Robert Dietz