NAHB analysis of the most recent Quarterly Sales by Price and Financing published by the US Census Bureau reveals that mortgages backed by the FHA made up 17.9%, or 32,000, of total sales, at 179,000 units, +7.3 percentage points higher than 2Q 2018 (20,000). The FHA share is the highest it has been since the first quarter of 2013.
Conventional loans accounted for 69.3% of new home sales in 2Q 2019, a +0.7 percentage point increase from 1Q 2019.
Cash purchases accounted for 5% of new home sales in 2Q 2019, the lowest since 2Q 2018, when it was 7.3%. The percentage of new homes bought with cash has declined each of the past four quarters. Although cash sales make up a small portion of new home sales, they constitute a larger share of existing home sales. — US Census Bureau
According to estimates from the US National Association of Realtors, roughly 16% of existing home transactions were all-cash sales in June 2019, down from 19% and 22% in May 2019 and June 2018, respectively. The declines have been concurrent with a drop in the share of existing homes bought by investors and an increase in the share of first-time buyers.
The nonseasonally adjusted homeowner vacancy rate continued its downward slide that began after the Great Recession. It hit a new cyclical low of 1.3%, 20 basis points lower from the rate in 2Q 2018. The national rental vacancy rate stayed at 6.8%. — US Census Bureau
US HomeOwnership Rates: 2Q 2019
According to the Census Bureau’s Housing Vacancy Survey (HVS), the nation’s homeownership rate in 2Q 2019 fell to 64.1%, the lowest since 3Q 2017. But it is statistically unchanged from 1Q 2019 (64.2%) and a year earlier (64.3%). Compared to the peak of 69.2% in 2004, the homeownership rate is 5 percentage points lower and remains below the 25-year average rate of 66.2%. The recent declining homeownership rate is largely due to housing affordability concerns.
The housing stock-based HVS revealed that the number of households increased to 122.5 million in 2Q 2019, 1.2 million higher than a year ago. Newly gained households were almost equally split between renters and owners.
The number of renter households increased by 599,000.
At the same time, 585,000 homeowner households were added.
This stands in sharp contrast with the 2017-2018 trend when most of household formations were concentrated in the owner-occupied sector.