King County well below U.S. homeownership average

Puget Sound Business Journal

Date: Friday, September 28, 2012, 6:23am PDT

At only a bit more than 58 percent, King County falls well below the national homeownership rate of 65 percent.

Only Whitman County in eastern Washington, home of Washington State University in Pullman, has a lower homeownership rate in the state, at 45.24 percent.

Wahkiakum County in the southwestern part of the state has the highest percentage of homeownership, at 79.74 percent.

On Numbers, the research division of American City Business Journals, reports the latest quarterly figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show that owners occupied 65.5 percent of the nation’s houses, condominiums and apartments as of mid-2012. The other 34.5 percent were rentals.

The current figure is in line with trends since 1995, when the quarterly homeownership rate climbed above 65 percent for the first time since 1981. It has hovered in the range of 65 to 69 percent ever since, reaching a peak of 69.2 percent in 2004, then retreating as the economy worsened late in the decade

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/morning_call/2012/09/king-county-well-below-us.html?ana=e_sea_rdup&s=newsletter&ed=2012-09-28