The latest homeownership rate declined to 65% in the second quarter of 2025, marking its lowest level since late 2019, according to the Census’s Housing Vacancy Survey (HVS). With mortgage interest rates remaining elevated and housing supply still tight, housing affordability is at a multidecade low. Compared to the peak of 69.2% in 2004, the homeownership rate is currently 4.2 percentage points lower and remains below the 25-year average rate of 66.3%. Compared to the previous quarter, the homeownership rate dropped by 0.1 percentage point.[OD1]  Additionally, homeownership rates dropped amongst almost all age groups. Householders aged 45-54 experienced the largest drop, declining by 1.9 percentage points from 71.1% to 69.2%. The 35-44 age group saw a 1.2 percentage point decrease, decreasing from 62.2% to 61%. Among younger households, the homeownership rate for those under 35 dropped 1percentage points to 36.4% in the second quarter of 2025, hovering near the lowest rate in the last 6 years. This age group, particularly sensitive to mortgage rates and the inventory of entry-level homes. However, homeownership rates for householders aged 55-64 and 65 years and over stayed unchanged from a year ago. The national rental vacancy rate inched down to 7% for the second quarter of 2025, after steadily increasing since 2021. Meanwhile, the homeowner vacancy rate stayed at 1.1%, remaining near the survey’s 67-year low of 0.7%. The housing stock-based HVS revealed that the count of total households increased to 132.5 million in the second quarter of 2025 from 131.3 million a year ago. This increase was driven entirely by renter household growth, which added 1.2 million new households. Meanwhile, the number of owner-occupied households declined by 39,000 over the same period. Discover more from Eye On Housing Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

The majority of single-family home builders do not currently use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their businesses.  For the highest use, 20% of builders use AI to generate advertising/marketing materials and 11% to help analyze markets/plan projects.  Less than 5% currently use this tool to help with another 10 business functions, from designing projects to operating automated construction equipment in the chart below. These findings were derived from the July 2025 survey for the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) and reflect an early industry reading likely to evolve in the coming years. Builders not currently using AI were asked about the likelihood they will start doing so in the next two years (using a scale from 1 to 5, where 1=not at all likely and 5=very likely).  Not surprisingly, the two areas most likely to see new builders adopting AI are the generation of advertising/marketing materials (average rating 3.6) and the analysis of markets/plan projects (3.0)—the same ones that boast the largest adoption rates already. Meanwhile, the chance that builders will take up the use of AI in any of the other business functions is much lower, as all 10 received average likelihood ratings below 3.0.  The two areas where builders are least likely to start using AI in the next two years are in the operation of automated construction equipment (average rating: 1.7) and to interact with the local building or planning department (1.9). Discover more from Eye On Housing Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.