Older Owners Drive Recent Household Growth
Older owner households are driving growth and holding homes longer, while younger households enter as renters, shaping inventory, turnover and rental demand.
CHICAGO – Once households form, their starting point in housing matters just as much as the number of households formed.
In 2024, the U.S. added about 1.4 million new households compared with the year before. However, that growth wasn’t evenly split between renters and owners. Owner households increased by roughly 941,400, while renter households grew by about 463,380. In other words, more of the net household growth last year came from owners rather than renters.
What’s driving that pattern? Age plays a big role. Looking at the one-year change, much of the homeowner growth came from older households, especially those aged 65 and older. This reflects longer lifespans, aging in place, and homeowners holding onto their properties longer than in the past. These households aren’t necessarily entering the market as buyers, but they are affecting inventory, turnover, and availability in many ways.
At the same time, younger households continue to enter the housing market primarily as renters. Affordability pressures mean many younger households are forming but doing so in rental housing rather than with home ownership. That’s why rental demand remains strong, even as overall household growth continues.
The longer-term, five-year view reinforces this story. Since 2019, renter growth has been concentrated at younger ages, while ownership growth has been overwhelmingly driven by older households. In fact, households aged 65–74 and 75+ account for a large share of the net increase in owner households over the past five years. That demographic shift helps explain why housing turnover has slowed and why inventory recovery remains uneven across markets.
For Realtors®, this context matters. It helps explain why rental markets remain tight, why first-time buyer pipelines are building slowly, and why many markets feel constrained even when demand hasn’t disappeared. Housing demand isn’t driven by a single generation — it reflects younger households forming and older households reshaping how and where they live. Understanding who is forming households, how they enter the market, and where they fit in the housing lifecycle is key to understanding today’s housing dynamics and where opportunities and challenges lie ahead.
© 2026 National Association of Realtors® (NAR)