Homeownership Falls to Lowest Level in 5 Years

With housing costs continuing to rise, homeownership rates have fallen to their lowest point in the last five years. According to a recent report from real estate marketing platform Realtor.com, just 65.1% of Americans reported owning a home in Q1 2025. This is a slight decline from the same time last year when 65.6% of the population owned homes.

At the same time, vacancy rates are also low, likely due to the lack of inventory in the housing market. Across the U.S., home vacancy is the highest in the South. There, 1.3% of homes are vacant, and in the West, 1.1% of homes are vacant. The Midwest and Northeast have the most occupied homes with less than 1% of homes sitting vacant in both regions.

"Though recent inventory gains have kept vacancy at a recent high, there are still far fewer vacant homes than was typical in the years pre-pandemic, suggesting that inventory still has some ground to cover," says Hannah Jones, senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com. Read more