Home ownership in MA exceeds national average for first time ever in 2012

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It came as a shock to me to discover that home ownership in MA had trailed overall numbers for the US ever since 1900 – until 2012 that is.

First look at this table from 1900 to 2010:

Home Ownership_1900_2010Source: US Census Bureau

Now look at the year by year numbers from 2000 to 2012:
Home Ownership_MASource: US Census Bureau

While for the country overall home ownership peaked in 2004 at 69.0% and has declined every year since then to 65.4% in 2012, here is MA we’ve jumped from 59.9% in 2000 to 65.8% in 2012, and have finally exceeded the national average for the first time.

We still, however, rank only 38th of 50 States in home ownership, with 17 States having rates above 70%. The reason we are above the average for the whole country is that the big population States of NY and CA rank below us.

I doubt many people would have guessed that West Virginia has the highest rate in the US at 75.8% – I wouldn’t have.

With some 115 million households in the US, the decline of 3.6% in home ownership since 2004 means that some 4 million fewer households own their own home than did in 2004. That, I suspect, indicates pent up demand in the future.