Home Ownership Tumbles 1.1 Percent In One Year

Foreclosures and more stringent lending standards are taking a toll on the American Dream. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the percentage of people owning homes in the U.S. fell from 66.2 to 65.1 percent last year.

That's still a high number, but significantly below the nearly 70 percent of people in the U.S. who owned homes at the height of the housing bubble.

The report, “Housing Characteristics:2010,” provides some clues to what happened to the U.S. housing market in the last few years. The nation's inventory of houses grew by 15.8 million units between 2000 and 2010, an increase of more than 13.6.

That suggests there was overbuilding – creating more homes than people could buy. Or at least, more than they could afford to buy.

Building boom in South and West

The housing inventory increased in all states during the decade but grew faster in the South and West than in the Midwest and Northeast. It's not surprising then that the South and West experienced some of the sharpest declines in home sales and values over the last three years.

The South grew 17.9 percent to 50.0 million units and the West grew 17.3 percent to 28.6 million units. In contrast, the Midwest grew by 9.3 percent to 29.5 million units and the Northeast grew by 6.6 percent to 23.6 million units.

All of the states with the largest percentage increases in housing units were in either the West or the South: Nevada (41.9 percent), Arizona (29.9 percent), Utah (27.5 percent), Idaho (26.5 percent), Georgia (24.6 percent), Florida (23.1 percent), North Carolina (22.8 percent), Colorado (22.4 percent), Texas (22.3 percent) and South Carolina (21.9 percent).

Vacant Units

Every region and all but three states experienced a percentage point increase in their gross vacancy rate during the decade. Nevada led all states with both the largest percent increase in total housing units and the largest percentage point increase in the gross vacancy rate. Only three states, New Mexico (-0.9), Wyoming (-0.2) and Hawaii (-0.1), experienced a decrease in their gross vacancy rates.

Many of the states with the highest homeowner vacancy rates also had the highest rental vacancy rates in 2010. The homeowner vacancy rate is the proportion of homeowner inventory that is unoccupied and "for sale," and the rental vacancy rate is the proportion of the rental inventory that is unoccupied and "for rent." Of the top 10 states with the highest homeowner vacancy rates, eight were also in the top 10 for rental vacancies: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and South Carolina.