The United States has added nearly 10.5 million new renter households in the quarter-century since 2000, and yet the nationwide rentership rate in 2024 of 34.73% was within 100 basis points of its 33.8% level in 2000.
The U.S. homeownership rate peaked at 67.3% in 2006 before sliding to around 63% in 2014, 2015 and 2016 in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. It was 65.3% in 2024, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
More than one-third of the nearly 30% increase in rental household growth over the past 25 years was driven by California, Texas and Florida, each contributing more than 1 million for a combined contribution of 3.8 million households.
But even if the ownership rate remains steady above 60%, swelling numbers of renter households support long-term demand for units, likely causing single-family rental markets to grow in influence within residential investing and the broader economy.
“Rentership in the U.S. is headed back up the past few years just with housing affordability,” said Dash Robinson, president of single-family rental investor Redwood Trust, in a conversation with Scotsman Guide last month.
“A lot of folks want to rent or can’t own,” Robinson explained, saying “more and more you see those types of demographics not wanting your traditional Class A or B, garden-style apartment. It’s a single-family home with a yard.”
This structural shift in U.S. housing and the broader economy is described as “renting for the long run” in a new analysis of Census data by Point2Homes, a rental listings platform owned by Yardi Systems Inc., a property management technology firm.
“Indeed, the number of renters would be even higher today if the Great Recession had not kept many young adults living in their parents’ home,” the report suggests, referring to the economic slowdown from late 2007 to mid-2009 precipitated by the 2008 financial crisis.
Meanwhile, at the city level over the past 25 years, 43 cities have shifted to “renter-majority status” opposed to 18 shifting to “owner-majority.”
Expanding demand driven by more renter households has fueled a surge in single-family residential investor lending in recent years, beginning during the COVID-19 pandemic when borrowing costs and rapid asset appreciation made real estate investing highly profitable.
Home sellers earned typical profits exceeding 60% in mid-2022, according to real estate market analytics firm Attom, up from a pre-pandemic average of around 30%. Seller profits were just under 50% last quarter.
A historic housing slowdown followed the Federal Reserve’s hiking of its benchmark interest rate in 2022 to address inflation, exacerbating pandemic-era affordability pressures sidelining first-time homebuyers but allowing real estate investors to stay active.
Despite investor purchase volumes remaining about 25% below 2021 levels, in the first six months of 2025 investors improved upon monthly totals from the same period in 2024, buying 85,000 homes per month compared to 84,000 monthly in the first half of last year.
In lower price tiers this can have the effect of crowding out first-time buyers. Nearly one-fifth of all U.S. single-family homes are owned by real estate investors.
“Longer term, I don’t think we are going to see a significant change or slowdown in investor activity,” said Selma Hepp, chief economist of real estate analytics firm Cotality, in a recent interview with Scotsman Guide.
With inflation outpacing home price gains since June, according to ratings agency S&P Global, and national home price gains of around 1% to 2% expected in 2026 and 2027, the engine of wealth creation in owning residential real estate is shifting gears from asset appreciation to rental cash flows for the foreseeable future.
Debt-service coverage ratio (DSCR) loans, in particular, have been popularly used as business-purpose loans with which borrowers can purchase properties for rental portfolios based on the rental cash-flow forecast from the property, not the borrower’s credit profile.
Following Washington, D.C., at 59.1%, states with the highest share of renters in 2024 were New York (45.7%), California (44.2%), Nevada (39.9%), North Dakota (38.8%), Hawaii (38.4%), Texas (37.7%), Massachusetts (37.6%), Washington (37.1%) and Oregon (36.9%), according to Point2Homes.
However, states that saw the greatest rise in rentership rates from 2000 to 2024 were Nevada (68.1%), Texas (61.2%), North Dakota (58.2%), Washington (46.2%), Oregon (34.9%), Washington, D.C. (32.4%), California (23%), Massachusetts (13.8%), Hawaii (7.9%) and New York (7.8%).
