New county homeownership rate for NC (Durham, Fort Bragg: renters, home, to buy)

[MrBojangles]

The Census came out with new numbers for Occupied housing units, Occupied by owners, Occupied by renters.

National homeownership rate is pegged at 65 percent - The Business Journals


Interesting to see. The highest percentage of renters come in counties with universities and/or military bases.

Article about North Carolina:
Durham County has state?s lowest homeownership rate - Triangle Business Journal

[macjr82]

The rest of the bottom five are Pitt, Watauga, Cumberland and Onslow. Two counties anchored by colleges, and to counties anchored by military bases. Both leading to understandably high rental rates and conversely low homeownership. What's Durham's excuse? I know it has colleges as well, but not exclusively so. If you remove App State, ECU, Fort Bragg, and Camp Lejeune those other counties are empty.

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by MrBojangles

The highest percentage of renters come in counties with universities and/or military bases.

That's the distinction between incidental and causal.

Universities and military bases are examples of communities with large numbers of intentionally transient
people (both singles and families). Whether they have the financial ability to buy or not few will want to make the purchase commitment when they expect to be moving on within a few years.

Beyond the transient we have a rather large number of people today with less than ideal job security.
Whether they have the financial ability to buy or not few will choose to make the purchase commitment when they are concerned they'll be forced to move on within a few years.

That leaves the poor and the stuck. No real options to have it better if they did move on, don't really want to move on but still no real ability to buy no matter how long they stay.

Nationally home ownership has never been above the middle 60's.