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March 30, 2021

CT homeownership rate falling

Photos | Contributed The ratio of Connecticut owner-occupied households to total households fell 1.4% between 2014 and 2019, making it one of only two states that showed statistically significant decreases over those five years
By Matt Pilon

Connecticut has long had an above average rate of homeownership compared to the rest of the country, but the gap has been narrowing in recent years, according to a new report from the U.S Census Bureau.

The ratio of Connecticut owner-occupied households to total households fell 1.4% between 2014 and 2019, making it one of only two states that showed statistically significant decreases over those five years, the report said.

The other was North Dakota, which had a steeper decline of 2.5%.

In both Connecticut and the U.S., homeownership rates -- seen as a measure of economic well-being -- have fallen from their recent peaks just prior to the Great Recession, but while Connecticut saw a 2015-2019 decline (from 66.2% to 65%) the U.S. saw an uptick over that same period, from 64% to 64.1%.

HBJ
Census data shows that the homeownership gap between Connecticut and the U.S. has narrowed recently

“After multiple years of declines in the wake of the Great Recession, the homeownership rate has leveled off and even begun to show signs of a small rebound in recent years,” wrote Census survey statisticians and report co-authors Peter Mateyka and Christopher Mazur. “However, this national trend may not capture the specific experiences of individual states and counties, which varied in both the size and timing of homeownership rate changes during this period.”

The report makes use of new home ownership data released last December, which allowed the authors to compare three consecutive five-year periods (2005-2009, 2010-2014, and 2015-2019).

“The effects from the Great Recession and housing market crash were clear, resulting in widespread and long-lasting impacts to households’ abilities to own a home,” the authors wrote. “While recent years have witnessed an emerging rebound in homeownership, the global COVID-19 pandemic could pose a new challenge.”

Data to be released by the Census at the end of 2021 could start to reveal what impacts the pandemic has had on homeownership.

It also remains to be seen what impacts a relative boom in single-family home sales that began last summer will have on the homeownership picture.

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