25 Years of Rentership: How Renting Redefined the American Dream

What does it say about the American Dream when more people are renting than ever before?

At the turn of the 21st century, the housing market seemed to be heading in a single, confident direction: Homeownership was the goal, equity was attainable, and renting was usually just a stop along the way. But that sense of stability quickly unraveled.

The housing crash of the late 2000s, followed by a decade of uneven recovery and the disruptions of the pandemic, reshaped the way Americans live and think about home. Gradually, the path from renting to owning has become less predictable, and for many, less accessible.

If the last century was defined by suburban homeownership, then this one seems to be shaped by renting for the long run. Here’s what two and a half decades of data reveal about renting in the U.S.:

To understand how housing trends have changed, Point2Homes analysts looked at rentership nationwide, as well as across all states and more than 650 large U.S. cities, using data from 2000 to the latest in 2024. The review reveals not only cyclical ups and downs but also a structural shift in American housing. But how did we get here?

When Homeownership Defined the Dream: The Early 2000s

In the first few years of the century, owning a home wasn’t just part of the American Dream — it was it. Historical Census data shows how deeply rooted the ownership ideal had become: “In 2000, 2-in-3 householders in the United States owned their own homes; in 1900, less than half owned their homes.”

By 2000, more than 66% of Americans were homeowners — part of an upward trend that culminated in 2006, when the national homeownership rate peaked at 67.3%.

The surge was fueled by a mix of optimism, easy credit, and homeownership being seen as a path to financial security and the American way of life. Additionally, subprime mortgages and historically low interest rates meant access to credit was easier at the time.

The Great Recession & Rise of Rentership: 2008-2012

When the housing bubble burst in 2007, millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. The aftermath reshaped the housing landscape as the national homeownership rate plunged and continued to fall, reaching a 50-year low. To put things into perspective, Investopedia notes:

“In 2023, the number of foreclosure filings in the United States was 357,062. In 2009 and 2010, during the housing bubble, foreclosures totaled over 2.8 million for each year.”

Many former homeowners returned to the rental market as lending standards became stricter and mortgages harder to obtain. At the same time, demand for rental housing surged, quickly turning renting from a temporary fallback into a mainstream and increasingly common way of life across the country.

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Market Recovery Without Full Rebound: 2013-2019

As the housing market regained its footing after the crash, homeownership began to recover, but it never returned to its early-2000s highs. By 2015, more Americans were renting than in decades, signaling a change in the nation’s housing dynamics.

In 2019, the homeownership rate had edged back up to around 64%, yet rentership remained deeply ingrained. By this time, demographic shifts had started to play a role in the growing appeal of renting:

The aging of the millennial generation […] has lifted the number of adults in their 20s, the stage of life when renting is most common. In addition, millennials are slower to marry and have children than previous generations, thus delaying the life events that typically precede first-time homeownership. Indeed, the number of renters would be even higher today if the Great Recession had not kept many young adults living in their parents’ homes.”

Pandemic Shock & a New Housing Market: 2020’s Aftermath

At first, the COVID-19 pandemic sent the housing market into overdrive. Ultra-low mortgage rates, government stimulus, and the rise of remote work spurred a wave of homebuying as people sought space and stability during lockdowns.

So, for a brief period, homeownership ticked upward and demand for houses surged, creating one of the most competitive buying environments in recent memory. But by 2022, the momentum reversed: Mortgage rates climbed past 7%, inventory remained tight, and prices stayed high, sidelining many potential buyers. As a result, renting became a backbone of the modern housing landscape.

What Does Renting Look Like Today?

Homeownership is significantly lower now than it was in its 2006 peak, but it still makes up around 65.5% of housing today. Even so, the rental market has continued to expand. According to the latest 2024 U.S. Census data, the number of renter households has grown by nearly 10.5 million since 2000.

The renter slice of the housing market has increased, as the national share went from 33.8% in 2000 to just under 35% in 2024. That’s over 35.6 million renter-occupied households to more than 46.1 million today.

While the uptick in renters might appear modest at first, it represents millions of additional households choosing or being pushed into renting, often due to rising home prices, high mortgage rates, and limited housing supply.

And, although homeownership has been gaining ground, too (from 69.8 million to 86.6 million during the same 25 years), renter households grew faster, jumping 29.3%, compared to a 24% increase among owners. In fact, renting is becoming the more common housing option in some markets — especially in those where affordability and flexibility outweigh the appeal of ownership, from renter-dominated suburbs to long-established urban renter hubs.

21^st Century Renter Trends by State

Washington, D.C., the Perpetual Renter-Dominated Outlier

With more than one-third of all households occupied by renters, renting has become a defining part of the American way of living. But, when it comes to renting, not all markets are created equal.

The contrast across states and the District of Columbia highlights striking differences in housing dynamics. That said, D.C. remains in a class of its own, with more than 59% of households renting — a statistic that’s nearly unchanged since 2000. In this case, its compact, urban layout, with virtually no suburban or rural ownership zones, makes it a prime environment for renting.

Click on the map below to explore 25 years of rentership rates, trends, and historical peaks across the 50 states and D.C.:

Of course, New York and California are each shaped by major urban centers where renting dominates. Nearly half of New York households rent, largely driven by NYC, while California’s high home prices and sustained demand in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco have made long-term renting the norm.

At the same time, renter growth has been driven by population expansion in key Sun Belt states. Three states alone — Texas, California, and Florida — accounted for over one-third of the nation’s renter household growth, adding roughly 3.8 million new renter households in the first quarter of this century. That’s more than dozens of other U.S. states combined.

That said, rising rentership has also occurred in less-expected regions. North Dakota has joined the top five renter-heavy states for the first time since 2000. Here, renter households have surged by more than 58%, fueled by rapid population growth and an influx of younger, more mobile residents.

Renting Now Reigns in 169 U.S. Cities

More Cities Shifted to Renter-Majority Than Owner-Majority in Last 25 Years

At the city level, there’s an even clearer view of where renting truly dominates and where it’s expanding the fastest. As of last year, 169 U.S. cities had reached a point where half or more of all households were renting — up from 144 cities in 2000. In several (such as Hartford, CT, or Santa Monica, CA), rentership rates have soared past 70%.

Notably, the most striking renter shares aren’t found in major urban hubs, but in smaller markets, where renting has become the dominant housing choice, usually due to proximity to major urban centers.

In particular, New Jersey’s Union City and Newark stand out with 82% and 76.5% of households renting their homes, respectively — both part of the New York City metropolitan area, where high housing costs and limited inventory continue to push more residents toward renting rather than buying.

Still, the list of cities where renters now outnumber homeowners includes familiar heavyweights like New York City, Los Angeles, and Houston — each adding more than 160,000 renter-occupied households since the year 2000.

Meanwhile, as economic pressures and demographic changes push more residents toward renting, 43 cities have shifted to renter-majority status, while only 18 have moved in the opposite direction to become owner-majority over the last 25 years.

As cities expand, economies shift, and affordability challenges persist, rentership has become both a reflection of change and a driver of it. Behind the near-steady nationwide rentership rate lies a story of millions of new renter households, reconsidered priorities, and markets adapting to new economic realities. As such, it’s safe to say that the last quarter-century didn’t just add renters. It changed what housing means in America.

Renting in the 21st Century So Far: Frequently Asked Questions

Methodology

Point2Homes.com is a real estate listing portal for rental homes across the United States. Part of Yardi Systems, Point2Homes covers housing trends and news through comprehensive studies that draw from internal data, public records, governmental sources, and online research.

Banner Image: Home affordability. Image Credit – Jakub Żerdzicki