Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Things Fall Apart: Virginia Homeownership Rate

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

From an email from search-intelligence.co.uk attributed to RubyHome Luxury Real Estate:

Virginia experienced the largest decline in homeownership of any state during the new millennium. In 2000, the homeownership rate sat at 73.9%; it declined to 67.4% in 2022. This makes for a percentage-point change of 8.8% since 2000 in 2020 — the most of any state. “With the average state decline sitting at 1.3%, Virginia’s dwindling rate of homeownership is the most drastic nationwide,” states the email.

Virginia has a home-ownership problem, which is intimately connected to the home affordability problem. What’s next — tent cities?

Search-intelligence.co.uk appears to be a marketing firm that generates links for clients by conducting all manner of state rankings, blasting out emails to blogs and other media, and crediting their client. There does not appear to be any serious research behind this particular ranking. But that does not invalidate the finding.

— JAB

Share this article

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

Comments

52 responses to “Things Fall Apart: Virginia Homeownership Rate”

  1. Teddy007 Avatar
    Teddy007

    The question to ask is why? Did owner occupy houses convert to rentals as the owners aged out? What part of new construction was purchased by investors to use as rental property? Did many of the condos build before the real estate collapse in 2008 convert to apartments?

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Well, in 2021 Zillow and others bought tons of houses. Wonder if corporations are screwing around with thing to max profits or min losses?

    2. Tom B Avatar
      Tom B

      My dad just went to assisted living. His (paid up) former owner occupied is now a rental to supplement his retirement, and will be passed on as part of his estate.
      It all could be s sign of increasing wealth in our society.?

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        My father-in-law had a stroke a few years back but he had bought long-term care insurance. Turns out it was not near enough and he had to hire a lawyer to get them to pay. What saved him was his IRAs he had built years earlier.

        1. Tom B Avatar
          Tom B

          Growing old ain’t for the weak. Hope your dad is OK. We are lucky, my dad is still going really well at 104.

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            father in law , sorry. he passed, 96 but was ready the stroke was severe. 104! Congrats to him!

      2. Teddy007 Avatar
        Teddy007

        But that means that the tenant is not building wealth. Socieities overall wealth dones not increase because something moves from owner -occupied to a rental property. It just means that the owner is no longer part of the neighborhood.

        1. Tom B Avatar
          Tom B

          The increase in wealth I referred to was the fact that dad was able to retain his home and not have to sell it to get money for his assisted living care. I don’t think prior generations were so fortunate.
          The tenant has no moral or legal claim to the wealth generated by the rental property. My father and my siblings and myself all started off in rental properties and managed to become independent in our old age. We are all blue collars. I’m sure that if we could do it, he can also do it if he tries. Screw Marx. I don’t think that free loader worked an honest day in his life.

          1. Teddy007 Avatar
            Teddy007

            I believe the percentage of homes that were rental properties were higher in the past versus today.

  2. walter smith Avatar
    walter smith

    Hmmm…. Wanna know nationally or Va-specific?
    Nationally, worthless college degrees and debt, with much delayed family formation. Harder to get the down payment, have joint income to qualify for a responsible mortgage, etc…
    Va-specific – from 2002-2022 we had one R Gov, who was a political hit from the Obama Justice Dept and a prosecutor named Jack Smith, who was overturned 8-0 by the Supreme Ct.
    But anybody questioning anything goi g on with all theTrump prosecutions and the J6 prosecutions and the Hunter and Joe corruption so evident is a conspiracy theorist and a racist!
    Smart arguments from the baby killer crowd…

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Yeah, and that governor was more interested in ultrasonic imaging of 9-month rental units only.

      Let me hear you say, “Get off the yard, kid!”

      1. walter smith Avatar
        walter smith

        No idea what you are alluding to, and doubt it is worthy of any engagement. Homeownership meanwhile has declined in Virginia. But you fight for the right to kill babies and call people who think that bad extremists if you wish… There are more important issues than the “right” to kill a baby in Virginia (not morally, of more practical effect, affecting everyone), but you just keep voting for that “right,” and pretend you are a “good” person.

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          Why would I ever pretend to be a good person?

  3. how_it_works Avatar
    how_it_works

    “What’s next — tent cities?”

    15 people occupying a 3-bedroom house, which has been going in such places as Manassas for at least two decades now.

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Check out the increase in multigenerational households in the past 20 years. We’re going Amish, even in the upscale neighborhoods where the BR folks live.

      1. how_it_works Avatar
        how_it_works

        I remember one of the elected dingbats where I used to live just GUSHING about multigenerational households. “Oh, it’s so nice that the grandparents live with the parents and their children”.

        Yea, teen pregnancy really is a wonder, isn’t it?

        At 15, you’re a parent.
        At 30, a grandparent.
        At 45, a great-grandparent.
        At 60, a great-great grandparent.

        4 generations, all under one roof!

        All but one of my grandparents was dead by the time I was 12.

      2. how_it_works Avatar
        how_it_works

        I remember one of the elected dingbats where I used to live just GUSHING about multigenerational households. “Oh, it’s so nice that the grandparents live with the parents and their children”.

        Yea, teen pregnancy really is a wonder, isn’t it?

        At 15, you’re a parent.
        At 30, a grandparent.
        At 45, a great-grandparent.
        At 60, a great-great grandparent.

        4 generations, all under one roof!

        All but one of my grandparents was dead by the time I was 12.

        1. Lefty665 Avatar
          Lefty665

          Died young did they?

          1. how_it_works Avatar
            how_it_works

            My parents were older when I was born.

        2. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          My niece’s marriage went *poof* about 6 or 8 years ago, so she and her daughter moved in with Bro. Then, Bro’s in-laws health took a knock and independent living was no longer an option. Wham! Four generations in a 3-bedroom house!

          1. how_it_works Avatar
            how_it_works

            Yea, it seems like moving back in with the parents is the fall-back when things don’t work out. Once *I* moved out, I would have done anything to keep from moving back in, though!

          2. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            As they say, “Cold day in Hell.” Funny, after I turned 40, couldn’t wait for the holiday visits though.

    2. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Down in Fredericksburg also.. thought not 15… but certainly 5- 6 cars at a house.

      1. how_it_works Avatar
        how_it_works

        They park on the lawn here in PWC, which isn’t allowed if your lot is less than 1 acre in size (which makes MY parking on the lawn A-OK).

  4. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Is it a Virginia-only problem or a wider trend with Virginia affected a bit more ?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/efd94419c2e4804d283f8437d3e73e44646340a630ab305a6f68a1bc24118301.png

    https://www.globest.com/2023/06/01/homeownership-rate-drops-to-53-year-low/?slreturn=20230904143857

    Looks like a wider trend probably reflecting urban areas higher costs of living and perhaps the effects of student loans on younger would be buyers.

    “It represents a decrease by 2 percentage points from 10 years ago in 2010 when it was 65.1%. In contrast, the remaining 36.9% of occupied housing units or 46.8 million were renter-occupied, up from 40.7 million in 2010, which repeated a pattern between 2000 and 2010.
    Exceptions exist, and five states experienced an increase in their homeownership rate between 2010 and 2020 with Hawaii showing the biggest percentage-point increase of 1.2%, followed by Alaska at 0.8%, Idaho, 0.5%, South Carolina, 0.4% and Wyoming, 0.1%. The highest homeownership rate went to West Virginia with 72.6% owning, followed by Maine at 71.1%. The lowest rate went to the District of Columbia at 38.3%.

    The homeowner vacancy rate—the proportion of homeowner housing inventory vacant for sale–in 2020 decreased 0.9 percentage points from the prior decade to 1.5% as more rented homes. The largest state declines occurred in Nevada at -3.7%, followed by Arizona, -2.2%, Idaho, -1.9%, Georgia, -1.8% and Florida, -1.8%. The area that ranked among the 10 largest household populations and had the highest rental vacancy rate of 10.4% was the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land area in Texas. It was the only area in 2020 with a rate greater than 10%.”

  5. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    “There does not appear to be any serious research behind this particular ranking. But that does not invalidate the finding.”

    How does that differ from my Irish grandmother’s favorite saying that if all stories are true, that was no lie?

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      A ranking is a ranking. It doesn’t require any research — just a comparison of data. Do you want to dispute the data?

      1. Stephen Haner Avatar
        Stephen Haner

        Show it to me and I’ll let you know. That’s the good thing about this format, links, etc.

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          “Here are some numbers. I don’t know what they mean, or from where they come, but they are numbers and they are close to the magnitude I assumed they would be.”

        2. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          “Here are some numbers. I don’t know what they mean, or from where they come, but they are numbers and they are close to the magnitude I assumed they would be.”

  6. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Here’s some good reading…
    https://www.redfin.com/news/investors/

    1. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      Interesting, makes me wonder if investment real estate was particularly strong in Virginia and that we’ll see a swing back to owner occupied housing now that they’re pulling back. OTOH, nobody likes high interest rates so owner/occupiers are not buying as usual either, so rentals may remain rentals until rates come down. But with lower rates the investors will be back. This is so confusing.:)

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        Heck, my first mortgage was in 1979 at 10%. Refi’ed to a single owner in ‘83. No big deal, but I enjoyed the extra cash flow.

        1. how_it_works Avatar
          how_it_works

          My first mortgage was in 2001 at 7.5%. I think I was eventually able to refi it to under 5%, and I eventually paid that house completely off about 4 years before I sold it because I really started to dislike the neighborhood.

  7. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Well, when unemployment hits 10% and foreclosures pop then the price of homes will drop and more people will be able to borrow at 12% to buy them. See? It’ll all work out.

    I want a yurt. Or a yogurt. Whichever one they bring me after lunch.

    https://virginiarealtors.org/2023/05/17/key-trends-q1-2023-multifamily-report/#:~:text=At%206.1%25%2C%20the%20statewide%20vacancy,in%20the%20last%20five%20years.

  8. how_it_works Avatar
    how_it_works

    The older the townhouse community is, the more renters it has.

    I thought about turning my old one into a Section 8 rental but I didn’t want to be on the hook for the maintenance and repairs required of a 30 year old townhouse (that was garbage when it was new).

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      FWIW, there were a smattering of houses in my neighborhood under rent when Covid began. To the last, they were all reno’ed and flipped in the last two years. My guess is that for more than half of ‘em it was the first time they’d been upgraded since being built in the 1970s. Lots of pink, green and blue toilets were being carted off.

      1. how_it_works Avatar
        how_it_works

        I did a lot of cosmetic stuff to my 1994 townhouse before I sold it.

        But none of that addressed the underlying poor construction. It has a brick front. I noticed that the caulk was tearing where the brick was caulked to the doorframe.

        Either that caulk shrank, or…

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          Well, when you pushed against the brick, did it move? I’ve seen that in houses I looked at in Texas.

          1. how_it_works Avatar
            how_it_works

            It didn’t move but I may not have pushed hard enough. I noticed that it had no weepholes, and I do know it was getting water behind it.

  9. dave schutz Avatar
    dave schutz

    I’m making a WAG here, that maybe, just maybe, the decline in marriage means that you have a lot fewer family units which can combine incomes to qualify for mortgages…

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      That’s not unreasonable. Marriage is one way to combine income to afford a house that you might not be able to as a single.

      I am told that in the Fredericksburg area that many apartments can cost as much as a mortgage on a monthly basis.

      The county will “work with” developers who design developments affordable to “workforces” and higher tone apartments for empty nesters who don’t have kids to be educated.

    2. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Why? My daughter and her sigother bought their house two years ago and had no difficulty with a mortgage. Their only problem is the division of Sched A deductions. I advised her 50-50 to avoid Trumpian problems with the IRS, but whatever they do stick with it for the life of the loan.

      BTW, SWAG… scientific wild….

    3. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Why? My daughter and her sigother bought their house two years ago and had no difficulty with a mortgage. Their only problem is the division of Sched A deductions. I advised her 50-50 to avoid Trumpian problems with the IRS, but whatever they do stick with it for the life of the loan.

      BTW, SWAG… scientific wild….

      1. dave schutz Avatar
        dave schutz

        ‘can’ maybe better than had been my impression. making the leap with someone to whom you don’t have a marriage commitment – this may be a bridge to far for some/many.
        now, ‘sigother’ I kinda like. My old ma useta refer to ‘ummer’, as in, ‘this is my daughter and her um, um…’ but that was in the declining days of it being scandalous to shack up.

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          I was “shacked up” as the folks would have said when they sold their home before moving to a retirement home. They asked if they could stay with me for a month and I said, “Sure.” My now wife still says I should have told them she was living there, and that I should have told her they were coming. That was one fun evening.

          1. dave schutz Avatar
            dave schutz

            My mother was a ’22 and her parents were born in the nineties – so she had some adjusting to do. And she did.

          2. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            Mom was born in ‘16, Dad in ‘18. Bro was born in ‘46. Wonder what was going on then.

            Biomom was a good Catholic girl who had 4 when I showed up. Adopted through the Church. Then, in the next 15 years, she dropped 4 more. Good Catholic girl, but I repeat myself.

    4. how_it_works Avatar
      how_it_works

      The girl that isn’t marriage material would probably be homeless if she weren’t shacking up with some guy. There usually isn’t two incomes in that situation, or one of the incomes is minimal.

      1. dave schutz Avatar
        dave schutz

        I’m in Arlington – lots of high incomes here, both young men and young women. So lots of two income couples who can qualify for a lot more loan than either could get alone. But I am well aware that Arlington is NOT Virginia as a whole…

        1. how_it_works Avatar
          how_it_works

          No, Arlington is definitely NOT Virginia as a hole. The “would-be homeless girl shacking up with a guy who pays all the bills” is the more common situation in place like…Manassas.

  10. Acbar Avatar
    Acbar

    “In 2000, the homeownership rate sat at 73.9%; it declined to 67.4% in 2022. This makes for a percentage-point change of 8.8% since 2000 in 2020 . . . .” Taken at face value this math does not compute. If this means the difference in the home ownership percentage over those 22 years, the change is 6.5% not 8.8%. If this means the decrease over those 22 years as a percentage of the rate in 2000, the change is 9.6% not 8.8%.

Leave a Reply

Read More