How Many Homeowners Have Paid Off Their Mortgages?

Five Thirty Eight ^ | 12/11/2014 | Mona Chalabi

[SeekAndFind]

Dear Mona,

It seems like homeownership is a common data filter in the social sciences. But nearly everyone I know who “owns a home” is paying a mortgage. How many “homeowners” have actually paid off their houses?

John, 34, Mount Vernon, Washington

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Dear John,

Your question is an important one, not only because home ownership can have big consequences for the economy, but because 56 percent of all the housing units in America (that includes trailers, apartments and houses) are owned by the people who live in them.

According to last year’s American Community Survey, one in three of those owner-occupied housing units doesn’t have any mortgage left to pay.

You and I are talking about slightly different things here, though, John: You’re asking about homeowners and I’m providing data on owner-occupied housing units. That’s because the American Community Survey summarizes data about the country’s 132.8 million housing units, not the individuals who own them.

If these different types of housing tend to have different numbers of people living in them (that seems pretty plausible to me) then these percentages about housing units don’t exactly translate to percentages about people. In other words, this data doesn’t show that 20 percent of Americans are homeowners who’ve paid off their mortgage debt, only that 20 percent of housing units are owner occupied with no mortgage left to pay.

[RandallFlagg]

I’ve only got eight years to go.

[HotHunt]

Oops! I meant $1800 a year, not a month.

[MileHi]

$28K to go. But at 3.5% I’m not in a big hurry.

[Billthedrill]

Paid off five years ago. It’s only a cabin on a lake but I have a little land with it they’ll be pulling me out of there with a toe tag on. And I’ll be retiring to it next July. 201 days and hell yes I’m counting. :-)