Although the housing market continues to recover since the Great Recession, the rates of homeownership remain below peak levels both in the United States and in Arkansas.
Homeownership rose through the 1970s and ‘60s, and then fell during the 1980s, a time of double-digit interest rates. It then soared through the 1990s, peaking at 69 percent in 2004 nationally, and then sharply declining with the bursting of the housing bubble in the mid-2000s.
In central Arkansas, the trend has been similar, although homeownership in the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway metropolitan statistical area has been slightly lower than the U.S. average. As the accompanying chart shows, homeownership in the MSA hit its highest level in 1980, 66.7 percent. It reached a second peak in 2000, 66.6 percent, before declining to 63.1 percent in 2014.
Metroplan, a nonprofit that’s the federally designated planning agency for Pulaski, Faulkner, Saline and Lonoke counties, details some of the changes in housing in its latest “Metro Trends” report, “Owning, Renting & a Changing Housing Market in Central Arkansas,” released last month.