The U.S. homeownership rate fell to 65.1% in 2010, a 1.1% decline over the past decade and the largest drop on record since the Great Depression, according to new figures compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau.
However, the government also found that the national housing inventory grew by 15.8 million units during that time, or 13.6%. (Presumably, a large majority of those units are encumbered by a mortgage.)
In each region of the nation homeownership rates declined.
The Midwest had the highest rate at 69.2 %, followed by the South (66.7%), the Northeast (62.2%) and the West (60.5%).
West Virginia (73.4%) and Minnesota (73.0%) had the highest homeownership rates, respectively, among individual states.
New York had the lowest, 53.3%, attributable to the high cost of housing in and around the greater New York metropolitan area.
