I asked our fans on Facebook for a topic idea for today.  Raqon was the first to respond with: “How about this: Switzerland- country with one of the top income per capita,yet 70% of all Swiss are renters.”  Interesting unto itself but a little hard to tie back to Portland real estate which is something I always try to do (no farmer’s market schedules here).

Home ownership as the American Dream has shifted in the last few years.  In the first quarter of 2005, the national home ownership rate was 70.4%.  For the third quarter of 2011 it was 68.0%.   76.1% of West Virginians owned their homes at the end of the third quarter compared to 54.5% of New Yorkers (Hawaii close behind at 55.0%).  Oregon is a little below average at 66.4%.  The Portland Metro MSA (the same area used by Case Shiller in their reporting) has a home ownership rate of 64.1%.  The District of Columbia has the lowest home ownership rates on the list at 44.3% but as 51st state…  All of the data above is from the US Census Bureau “Housing Vacancies and Homeownership” site.

West Virginia has the highest rate of home ownership and the 49th out of 50 lowest per capita income level (2009) according to Wikipidia.  Maryland, with the highest per capita income level is 15th on the list for home ownership.  New York, highest on our home ownership list is 15th on the per capita list.  It does appear that the higher the income level, the lower the level of home ownership in the United States which corresponds with Raqon’s high Swiss income/low ownership statement.