Homeownership to give way to renting

The rate of homeownership is likely to plummet to 63.5 percent by 2020, according to a report from the University of Utah’s Metropolitan Research Center. Homeownership reached its peak in 2004 and 2005, when 70 percent of dwellers owned homes, up from a low point in ownership in the 1980s. The center’s research director, Arthur Nelson, said that a greater percentage of new housing units will be rentals in the future, as renting becomes a more appealing option. Nelson’s data shows that approximately 57 percent of the 30.3 million housing units built between 2005 and 2020 will be rentals. “So many of our federal and state and local policies are driven by the assumption that homeownership is inherently preferred over renting,” Nelson said. “We’ll have far more renters in the future.”