Is the United States becoming a nation of renters? You might think so when reading all the headlines about the number of U.S. adults becoming “renters by choice.” But in the United States, owning a home is still, by far, the most common choice of households.
This doesn’t mean, though, that renting hasn’t become an attractive option to more U.S. households. Just look at the latest study from RENTCafe.
Owning a home has long been part of the American Dream. And households that own far outpace those that rent. But according to the latest research by RENTCafe, renting in the United States has steadily become a more popular option for adults. Since the Great Recession, the rentership share in the United States has fluctuated beteween 36 percent and 37 percent.
During this time, the United States has ranked fourth in the globe for renter growth, behind just Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom, according to RENTCafe.
RENTCafe says that renter households currently make up 36.2 percent of all the households in the United States. The share of renter households here grew 9.3 percent from 2010 through 2015.
RENTCafe found that renting is on the rise in 21 of the 30 countries the company studied. The United Kingdom had the fastest growth in renter households, 21.6 percent in five years.
Still, even with the growth in renting, owning is still the most popular choice in most of the countries studied by RENTCafe. The compnay found that from 2010 through 2015, only one of the 30 countries in the study shifted from owner- to renter-majority. That was Switzerland, where 56.6 percent of the housing units are now renter-occupied.
