Home Ownewship This High?

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sun Oct 25 08:59:53 PST 1998


Michael Pollak wrote:


>The figures suggest something dramatic happened in the third quarter to
>make the record possible. The historic figures are remarkably stable over
>time -- they've varied between 63 and 66 percent for 30 years.
>Homeownership reached 66 percent in the second quarter of this years, but
>it's reach that several times before, and as early as 1977. But between
>the 2nd and 3rd quarter of this year the homeownership rate jumped 0.8% --
>which I think, from eyeballing the chart back to 1965, is the highest one
>quarter jump in history. (Well, history back to 1965, which is as far
>back as they've posted.)
>
>I have no idea what this could be. The third quarter doesn't seem in
>retrospect to be one to inspire a housing boom. But I guess it did?

The new seasonally adjusted series showed a jump of 0.5 points, not 0.8. Still, this is a sharp jump, and the details show an even sharper jump for the 35-55 age range and for black* and "Hispanic" homeownership. I suspect what's happened is the combination of low down payments, low unemployment rates, low interest rates, tight labor markets, rising real wages, and a high degree of consumer confidence. For now, at least.

Doug

----

*In looking over the 1997 income & poverty numbers for an LBO article, I'm struck by the sharp income gains among African-Americans over the last few years, especially in the bottom half of the distribution. The black/white income gaps, though still large, have been narrowing over the last 3-4 years. I don't know what it all means, but no one's been talking about it much.



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