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

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

#51

Post by fred_is_fred »

_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.

In fact the opposite is true. My mortgage is 2.125% and I have no motivation to pay that off because of rates spiking upward which gives me a better cash return than 2.125%.

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

#53

Post by [deleted] »

dzdt wrote: post #39
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.

[deleted]

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

#54

Post by giantg2 »

IKantRead wrote: post #31
_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…

I agree overall, but the census should be measuring the primary residence of the respondent and exclude second houses or renters. Basically it's measuring households and not houses.

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

#55

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

lo_fye wrote: post #42

Translation: Nearly 40% of US homes are mortgage-free (and owned by Boomers)

Translation: ~30% of homes have been owned for more than 20 years, and guess what happens at the end of a mortgage and after 20 years of inflation? And guess how much money the top 10% have? Close to $2m counting their house...

You'll be old one day, too - believe it or not.

The boomers aren't special. They're just old.

One day they'll be dead, and you'll be the old person everyone complains about who owns their house and bought if for next to nothing 30 years ago.

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

#56

Post by IKantRead »

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?

I have a few friends who had major liquidity events happen to them and they each own 3-5 homes as investment homes. I believe these properties were paid full in full and in cash, so no mortgage.

This small proportion of my friends is mortgage free, but they own multiple houses so a fairly large proportion of my friends houses are mortgage free.

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

#57

Post by keeganjw »

bodeadly wrote: post #43

I have a crazy theory: Zillow is directly responsible for the housing shortage and high home prices. Zillow inspires people to move. More moving means houses get fixed up which increases home values. Browsing through homes on Zillow might start out as something to do when your bored but that can easily lead to "what if" thinking. Before Zillow they wouldn't even be thinking about moving.

The US has not built enough homes to meet demand for over 30 years which is by far the biggest factor in high housing prices. Zillow is not causing people to move more, the number of Americans moving each year is reaching record lows. High housing prices mixed with high interest rates is causing people to stay put because the cost of buying another home is much more costly. You have to go from your old low-interest mortgage to a high-interest one and high housing prices means realtor fees are also sky-high.

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

#59

Post by diffeomorphism »

In other news, older people are older. The median age in the US is 38.8 and for homeowners you can even throw out basically anyone under 20 (teens commonly don't own homes [citation needed]), so the median homeowner might be like 50. So it is not clear at all that this statistic says anything other than "40% of home owners are over the age of 60" (or the homes are owned by corporations, which makes this a quite useless statistic).
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