According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the share of mortgage-free homeowners continued rising nationwide and in every state in 2024.
The increase was possibly a reaction to higher interest rates and home prices that tend to discourage moves to new homes, said the Census Bureau, which noted that metropolitan counties in states across the South were among those with the greatest growth in mortgage-free ownership.
The percentage of U.S. owner-occupied homes owned free and clear rose from 34.4% in the 2010-2014 period to 39.4% in 2020-2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates released today.
The share of homes without a mortgage varied widely by state: 29% in Maryland (the lowest share after the District of Columbia’s 24.3%) to a high of 53.9% in West Virginia. The share increased from 2014 in every state and in the District of Columbia. In New Mexico, the share of mortgage-free homes grew from 41.5% to 48.5%. In contrast, the Census Bureau said that North Dakota’s share grew by just 1.5 percentage points between 2014 and 2024.
Shares Vary Widely at County Level
The share of homes owned outright also varied widely at the county level, with rural areas more likely than urban counties to have high rates of mortgage-free homeowners.
According to the 2024 5-year ACS estimates, 493 counties – many in or near large metro areas, Southern California, and along the Eastern Seaboard – had shares below 40%, the Census Bureau said. Many of the 2,204 counties where more than 40% of homeowners were mortgage-free in 2024 were in rural and less populated areas.
The share in 446 counties was not statistically different from 40%, the Census Bureau noted.
While the geographic distribution was similar, the Bureau said that fewer counties had high mortgage-free ownership rates in the previous 5-year period.
In 2014, 1,870 counties had a rate greater than 40%, again in more rural areas of the country, while 803 counties had free and clear rates below 40%.
Metro counties in states across the South were among those with the greatest growth in mortgage-free ownership, the Census Bureau said.
In Chattahoochee County, Georgia, the share of homeowners without a mortgage grew by 18.9 percentage points to 69.0% between 2014 and 2024. Several other metropolitan counties in Georgia and other southern states – Alabama, Kentucky, Texas, North Carolina, and South Carolina – also were among those with the highest growth, the Census Bureau noted.
Some Counties’ Share Dropped
Several counties outside of the South were among those with the highest growth in mortgage-free ownership. Among them: Torrance County, New Mexico in the West, as well as Boone County, Illinois, Linn County, Kansas, and Dakota County, Nebraska, in the Midwest.
Some metro counties’ share of mortgage-free homeowners dropped, however, over this period.
In Camden County, North Carolina, for example, the percentage of homes owned free and clear dropped nine points.
More urban counties had lower shares of mortgage-free homeowners but were more likely to see significant increases during the decade, while rural counties with higher shares saw no significant change.
Nearly half of all counties (1,577) saw statistically significant growth, the bureau said. Only 49 counties had a statistically significant decline in free and clear ownership shares, the bureau said.
In the Northeast, 180 counties experienced significant growth in mortgage-free ownership, while only 29 had no significant change and none declined according to the Census Bureau. In the South, meanwhile, 653 counties saw a significant increase and 746 had no significant change.
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