U.S. homeownership rates have been rising steadily since 2015, but even after a post-pandemic housing boom, they remain below levels reached during the housing boom of the mid-2000s. While local markets like the urban counties of New York are posting homeownership rates of less than 25%, exurban counties outside of Denver and in the South are seeing their homeownership rates surge by more than 90%, NAHB reports.
The Denver metro is home to two of the nation’s top 10 counties with the highest homeownership rates—Elbert County (92.6%) and Park County (91.1%). Mountain states like Nevada and Montana also made the top 10 list with homebuying hotspots Storey County, Nev. (96.5%) and Meagher County, Mont. (92.1%).
Population density also helps explain substantial variation in homeownership rates across counties. Urban high-density counties register some of the lowest rates. Four core urban counties in the New York metro area appear in the bottom ten homeownership rate list: Bronx (19.8%), New York County (24.7%), Kings County (30.7%) and Hudson County (32.3%). In California, the lowest homeownership rates are in San Francisco County (38.2%) and Los Angeles County (46.2%).
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