New US homeownership measure puts people first

David Sacks/Getty Images Article Highlights Just over half of U.S. adults own their home, new measure says New measure better captures young adults’ lower homeownership Approach demonstrates ties between homeownership and local housing costs New homeownership measure puts people first Share Facebook LinkedIn Twitter Subscribe Share Facebook LinkedIn Twitter The homeownership rate in the United States is reported to be 65 percent . But this commonly cited data point on homeownership is actually the owner-occupancy rate , which tells us how many housing units are occupied by an owner. While owner occupancy is an interesting measure, it doesn't tell us how many people own their home. As an alternative to better reflect the share of adults who are homeowners, we offer the homeowners-to-population ratio , or HPOP, a measure that lends a more nuanced view for important policy considerations and context. Using this new measure, the U.S. homeownership rate is 53 percent.