Largest Decline in Home Ownership Since Great Depression
Many of us have parents and grandparents who lived through The Great Depression. It might do us well to tune into those times and see how our current situation fares in comparison.
During the 1930s, home ownership dropped over 4%. In comparison, today’s economy has seen a drop of over 1%. While 1% of everything might not seem like a big number to you, it’s a start difference from where we were just ten to eleven years ago. 2004 showed home ownership rates near 70% of Americans and today, those figure rest closer to 65% in April of 2010. While places like New York and the District of Columbia both fall below the median with home ownership rates of 53% and lower (closer to 40% in DC), other places like West Virginia and Iowa showed home ownership rates well into the 70th percentiles for their residents.
As real estate professionals, we’re always curious about how trends tend to repeat themselves. We’ve seen an 80-year swing from a cash-based economy to one fueled by credit. Today, we see many who would love to be homeowners who either can’t afford to make the plunge or who don’t qualify for traditional mortgages. So what’s the next step?
We think education is key. Knowing your financial thresholds, keeping a cache of cash in reserve and living within means you can sustain regardless of your job situation and the national economy. There’s nothing we love more as real estate professionals than being a part of helping people lock down part of their dreams when they become homeowners. It’s the ethical thing to do to educate our clients and help them build a path to homeownership – it’s the one thing we can do to help the economy in the long run.
The Staff at San Juan Realty, Inc.
Tags: economy, Homeownership
