Recent Movers are More Likely to Switch from Owning to Renting than Vice Versa

The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) published an August 5 research note, Who’s Moving into Apartments?, that examines the type of households that switch from owners to renters and move into apartments. It is well known that renters tend to move more often than owners, but NMHC finds a substantial amount of tenure-switching when people move (from owner-to-renter or renter-to-owner) and reports that more owners are switching to renters than vice versa.

Using the 2007 American Housing Survey (AHS) as its data source, NMHC finds that 16% of all American households moved in the previous 12 months and of those, 30% switched tenure. It was more likely for a household to switch from owning to renting than it was for them to do the reverse, with 17% of movers switching from owners to renters and only 13% switching from renters to owners.

NMHC analyzes information from the AHS on recent movers, who are defined as households that moved within the prior two years, in order to uncover the ages and types of households that are moving from owners to renters. They find that all recent movers, except those in the 30-44 age group, are more likely to rent after their move. The recent movers with the largest increase in rentership are those aged 65 and over, with 35% of this age group renting before the move, and 52% renting after the move. The report points out that this age group is expected to be the fastest-growing over the next 15 years, making this tenure-switching trend an important one for the rental housing industry.

The types of households that are most likely to rent include singles and single parents, and these households are also the most likely to continue renting after moving. Alternatively, married couples with and without children are less likely to rent after moving than before. Finally, when looking at whether movers live in single-family or multifamily (rental or for sale buildings with at least two units in them) housing, NMHC finds that recent movers are more likely to live in multifamily housing after moving than they were before. This is true for all age groups except the 30-44 year-olds, but those households under 30 and 65 and over are among the most likely to move into multifamily housing along with singles and single parents.

The full report from NMHC, including tables and the statistics mentioned above, can be found at: http://newsmanager.commpartners.com/nmhcrn/textonly/2009-08-05.html.