Tracking household ownership is important for various reasons including understanding wealth-building capability, anticipating future housing needs, both house and multifamily construction and distribution, as well as planning ongoing capital source requirements.

Such planning depends on the availability of data. It primarily comes from the government, although other sources are often helpful. In this case, one private source of data — Apartment List — trotted out a new analysis that brings questions to the accuracy of data sources and a different interpretation that should shake many assumptions. In particular, the assumption of home ownership may be significantly overstated.

Apartment List senior research associate Rob Warnock pointed to a seeming contradiction. Some metrics show that buying a house has become more difficult. The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University showed early in 2024 that the ratio of home price to median household income hit a record high. Even in 2019, it was 4.1. In 2022, it rose to 5.6.