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Homeownership and Housing Equity in the Mid-Twentieth Century, Accessible Data

Figure 1. Aggregate Nonfarm Homeownership Rate
year SCF homeownership rate Census homeownership rate Upper confidence band Lower confidence band
1940   0.4111    
1947 0.5308   0.5510 0.5106
1948 0.5248   0.5439 0.5056
1949 0.5262   0.5454 0.5070
1950 0.5403 0.5340 0.5597 0.5209
1951 0.5666   0.5858 0.5474
1952 0.5615   0.5821 0.5408
1953 0.5595   0.5792 0.5398
1954 0.5795   0.5993 0.5597
1955 0.5634   0.5846 0.5422
1956 0.5826   0.6025 0.5628
1957 0.6131   0.6323 0.5939
1958 0.5764   0.5955 0.5572
1959 0.6011   0.6200 0.5822
1960 0.5979 0.6101 0.6175 0.5784

Source: Author calculations from the Survey of Consumer Finances 1947-1960, the 1940 and 1960 Censuses using data from IPUMS (Ruggles et al. 2025), and the 1950 Census of Housing Volume 1, Table 2.

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Figure 2. Homeownership Rate by Quintile of Total Family Income
year SCF Q1 SCF Q2 SCF Q3 SCF Q4 SCF Q5 Census Q1 Census Q2 Census Q3 Census Q4 Census Q5
1947 0.4753 0.4480 0.4954 0.5777 0.6289          
1948 0.5025 0.4568 0.4918 0.5132 0.6141          
1949 0.4209 0.4679 0.4952 0.5694 0.6414          
1950 0.4192 0.4785 0.4986 0.5778 0.6544          
1951 0.4255 0.4780 0.5691 0.5869 0.6595          
1952 0.3735 0.4594 0.5651 0.6031 0.6970          
1953 0.4157 0.4592 0.5472 0.5672 0.6820          
1954 0.4386 0.4662 0.5701 0.6557 0.6961          
1955 0.3742 0.4551 0.5660 0.6508 0.7430          
1956 0.4022 0.4523 0.5593 0.6580 0.7594          
1957 0.4469 0.5270 0.5886 0.6884 0.8149          
1958 0.3975 0.4174 0.6083 0.7077 0.7471          
1959 0.3884 0.4776 0.6437 0.6840 0.7827          
1960 0.3856 0.5025 0.5908 0.7235 0.7582 0.4301 0.5018 0.6255 0.7171 0.8028

Source: Author calculations from the Survey of Consumer Finances 1947-1960 and the 1960 Census using data from IPUMS (Ruggles et al. 2025).

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Figure 3. Homeownership Rate by Tercile of Predicted Family Income
year Bottom Tercile Middle Tercile Top Tercile
1947 0.4867 0.5360 0.5421
1948 0.4610 0.5181 0.5712
1949 0.4913 0.5259 0.5800
1950 0.5074 0.5260 0.5610
1951 0.5001 0.5663 0.5781
1952 0.4556 0.5731 0.5961
1953 0.4963 0.5566 0.5567
1954 0.5140 0.5606 0.6184
1955 0.4640 0.6059 0.5891
1956 0.4647 0.5892 0.6447
1957 0.5220 0.6412 0.6636
1958 0.4680 0.6225 0.6474
1959 0.5058 0.5841 0.6708
1960 0.4806 0.6203 0.6607

Note: Family income is predicted using the number of earners in the family and the education and occupation of the head.

Source: Author calculations from the Survey of Consumer Finances 1947-1960.

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Figure 4. Median Income by Tercile of Predicted Income and 25th Percentile House Value
year median income of bottom tercile median income of middle tercile median income of top tercile 25th percentile house value
1947 2100 2900 4000  
1948 2300 3350 4830  
1949 2610 3400 4700 5000
1950 2600 3415 4600 4700
1951 2800 3677 5000 5000
1952 2732 3751 4608  
1953 3000 4200 5478 5500
1954 3300 4472 5700 6000
1955 3176 4500 5990 6000
1956 3079 4845 6580 7000
1957 3429 5120 6649 7000
1958 3390 5183 7098 7500
1959 3300 5100 7085 7500
1960 3634 5500 7643 8000

Note: House value is not reported in 1948, 1949 and 1952.

Source: Author calculations from the Survey of Consumer Finances 1947-1960.

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Figure 5. Distribution of Income for Renters in the Bottom and Middle Terciles of Predicted Income and First-Time Homebuyers

This graph shows income distribution density curves comparing three population groups: renters in the bottom tercile of predicted income (purple dashed line), renters in the middle tercile of predicted income (orange dashed line), and first-time home buyers (solid black line).

The horizontal x-axis represents income in dollars, ranging from $0 to $15,000. The vertical y-axis shows density values from 0 to 0.0003.

The purple dashed line (bottom tercile renters) peaks earliest at approximately $2,500, reaching the highest density of all three groups at about 0.00028, then rapidly decreases, approaching zero around $6,000.

The orange dashed line (middle tercile renters) peaks at approximately $3,500 with a density of about 0.00026, then gradually decreases, approaching zero around $9,000.

The solid black line (first-time home buyers) has the widest distribution, peaking at approximately $4,500 with a density of 0.00018. Unlike the renter groups, this distribution has a longer tail extending to higher incomes, with small density values continuing beyond $12,000.

The chart indicates that first-time home buyers generally have higher and more widely distributed incomes compared to both renter groups, although the middle tercile renters have more similar incomes to first-time homebuyers than bottom tercile renters.

Note: Family income is predicted using the number of earners in the family and the education and occupation of the head. First-time homebuyers are families with a head age 25 to 44 that bought a home in the current or previous year.

Source: Author calculations from the Survey of Consumer Finances 1947-1960.

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Figure 6. Fraction of Families with More Liquid Assets than Needed for a Downpayment on a 25th Percentile Home
year Bottom Tercile Middle Tercile Top Tercile
1947      
1948      
1949 0.1658 0.2839 0.4488
1950 0.1617 0.2693 0.4560
1951 0.1690 0.2732 0.3810
1952      
1953 0.1118 0.3060 0.4187
1954 0.1529 0.2497 0.3369
1955 0.2264 0.4420 0.6030
1956 0.1999 0.3499 0.5546
1957 0.2260 0.3953 0.5817
1958 0.2160 0.3518 0.5243
1959 0.1496 0.3466 0.5155
1960 0.1866 0.3898 0.6194

Note: Liquid assets include savings accounts, checking accounts, and bonds. The downpayment is calculated as the minimum FHA downpayment multiplied by the 25th percentile home value. Family income is predicted using the number of earners in the family and the education and occupation of the head. Estimates are missing for 1947, 1948 and 1952 because house value is missing for those years.

Source: Author calculations from the Survey of Consumer Finances 1947-1960.

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Figure 7. Homeownership by Race and Predicted Income
year White T1 Back T1 White T2 Black T2 and T3 White T3
1947 0.5201 0.2926 0.5414 0.3370 0.5485
1948 0.4934 0.3262 0.5269 0.3423 0.5721
1949 0.5245 0.3293 0.5406 0.3302 0.5845
1950 0.5407 0.3515 0.5289 0.3990 0.5664
1951 0.5270 0.3332 0.5805 0.4876 0.5770
1952 0.4882 0.2967 0.5903 0.2995 0.6080
1953 0.5424 0.3131 0.5645 0.4311 0.5610
1954 0.5518 0.3641 0.5602 0.5565 0.6212
1955 0.5299 0.2287 0.6213 0.3217 0.6005
1956 0.5380 0.1971 0.6138 0.3772 0.6480
1957 0.5811 0.3301 0.6636 0.4372 0.6690
1958 0.5222 0.2898 0.6528 0.4118 0.6480
1959 0.5280 0.4238 0.6016 0.3343 0.6892
1960 0.5302 0.3504 0.6337 0.3571 0.6753

Note: Family income is predicted using the number of earners in the family and the education and occupation of the head. For Black families, the middle and top terciles are combined due to small sample sizes.

Source: Author calculations from the Survey of Consumer Finances 1947-1960.

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Last Update: September 24, 2025