A recent study from the Mortgage Banker Association’s Research Institute for Housing America (RIHA) examined the shift of existing housing stock between owner-occupied and rental-occupied over time. It found that between 2000 and 2014, roughly 6.5% of homes built prior to 2000 and 10.3% of homes built in the 1990s, shifted from owner-occupied to rental status. The study also revealed that housing stock is more likely to move from owner-occupied to renter-occupied when the current occupant of a home is under water. The RIHA study used data from the 2000-2014 Census and American Community Surveys and the 1985-2013 American Housing Survey panel.
“A striking feature of the last housing crisis was the dramatic shift of owner-occupied homes into the rental sector. This paper looks back historically to help understand how common such shifts have been and finds that the factors affecting the rate of change are quite similar over time,” said Lynn Fisher, Executive Director of RIHA and the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Vice President of Research and Economics.
