Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nearly 40% of U.S. homes are mortgage-free, census shows

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 82 posts

Re: Nearly 40% of U.S. homes are mortgage-free, census shows

#31

Post by IKantRead »

_ea1k wrote: post #12

Interesting, given all of the articles about increasing consumer debt. I'd guess that a lot more people are motivated to do this, with mortgage rates fluctuating upward so quickly over the last couple of years.

As this other comment pointed out [0] 40% of homes are mortgage free, but that says nothing about home owners.

Anecdotally I know that none of my neighbors are mortgage free. However I also have a few friends that had major cash windfalls things like startup exits or time working in hedge funds, each of them owns 3-5 houses outright as investments.

So, with this small sample I can easily see that of the total number of homes owned by friends/neighbors, 40% being mortgage free sounds about right, but far less of my friends/neighbors are mortgage free.

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38612670

Re: Nearly 40% of U.S. homes are mortgage-free, census shows

#32

Post by hanman999 »

code_runner wrote: post #26
vintermann wrote: post #21

And how many percent of US homeowners are mortgage-free?

this is an interesting distinction but I don't know enough to totally wrap my head around it. Can you expand a bit on how a home would have no mortgage but that same homeowner would?

A home owner might own multiple homes

Re: Nearly 40% of U.S. homes are mortgage-free, census shows

#33

Post by Pigalowda »

code_runner wrote: post #26
vintermann wrote: post #21

And how many percent of US homeowners are mortgage-free?

this is an interesting distinction but I don't know enough to totally wrap my head around it. Can you expand a bit on how a home would have no mortgage but that same homeowner would?

Blackrock and other funds buy thousands of homes and rent them out. Those are mortgage free homes.

Re: Nearly 40% of U.S. homes are mortgage-free, census shows

#34

Post by postalrat »

presidentender wrote: post #25
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #6

Well sure. The homes my landlord rents are mortgage free. I can say the same for folks I know with 2nd vacation homes and airbnb rentals. For the rest of my anecdata: For folks I know living in their own households, about 20% have it paid off. About half of those folks own multiple homes.

A landlord who doesn't use leverage is in the wrong asset class. Even if they'd somehow paid off the property before, anyone who didn't pull out cash when rates were below 5% and invest it elsewhere is a fool.

This explains why they own many mortgage free houses and you do not.

Re: Nearly 40% of U.S. homes are mortgage-free, census shows

#35

Post by 1-6 »

schnable wrote: post #15

More evidence that there are a lot of baby boomers.

I don’t know if this is true evidence but you have to wonder what the market will look like once Boomers need to vacate their homes, only to see a market where old millennials who don’t have much working life left decide never to buy their first home.

Re: Nearly 40% of U.S. homes are mortgage-free, census shows

#37

Post by [deleted] »

Pigalowda wrote: post #33
code_runner wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is an interesting distinction but I don't know enough to totally wrap my head around it. Can you expand a bit on how a home would have no mortgage but that same homeowner would?

Blackrock and other funds buy thousands of homes and rent them out. Those are mortgage free homes.

[deleted]

Re: Nearly 40% of U.S. homes are mortgage-free, census shows

#38

Post by [deleted] »

hanman999 wrote: post #32
code_runner wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is an interesting distinction but I don't know enough to totally wrap my head around it. Can you expand a bit on how a home would have no mortgage but that same homeowner would?

A home owner might own multiple homes

[deleted]

Re: Nearly 40% of U.S. homes are mortgage-free, census shows

#39

Post by dzdt »

vintermann wrote: post #21

And how many percent of US homeowners are mortgage-free?

Should be around 40%. The headline graph in the article has its data source as "Among owner-occupied housing units; Annually, 2012-2022". There shouldn't be much difference between percent of owner-occupied homes that are mortgage free and percent of homeowners who are mortgage-free.
Post reply on HN