A home for sale in Ontario, Canada, in March. (Della Rollins/Bloomberg News)
When do people stop owning a home? Thus asks J.D. Zahniser of St. Paul, Minn., who specifically wants to know at what age homeownership starts to drop in the United States, and whether it varies by income, education and race. She also wonders if state of residence matters: Do more people in Northern states give up on winter and move?
Brilliant question! We’ve often looked at when homeownership begins, but rarely when it ends.
In America, most people don’t become homeowners until age 35. By the time we hit our 70s, about 80 percent of households own their own home, according to our analysis of the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Homeownership remains steady throughout most of our 70s, dropping only as we near 80. (We’re focusing on households and the demographics of householders to avoid counting as homeowners people such as adult children living at home or retired parents who live with a family member.)
“When homeownership begins to fall is when retirees start seeing disabilities that will prevent them from living on their own,” economist Angie Chen at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College told us. “So they may be moving in with family or into an assisted-care facility.”
Read more at Washington Post.