By Chris Bruen
- Chris Bruen is Director of Research at the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at cbruen@nmhc.org.
The homeownership rate in the U.S. rose 2.6 percentage points to 67.9 percent during the second quarter of 2020, according to the Census Housing Vacancy Survey, marking the largest quarterly increase in homeownership (by far) since records began in 1965. Yet, as many in the research field are noting, this increase in homeownership is likely either inflated or entirely nonexistent.
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in the U.S., the Census Bureau suspended in-person interviews during the second quarter of 2020, relying instead on telephone outreach. This shift led to a sharp 12-percentage point decline in response rates to the Housing Vacancy Survey, with rates dropping from 79 percent to 67 percent. This steep decline makes any quarter-over-quarter analysis unreliable.
Nevertheless, the HVS data release led to a wave of headlines—U.S. homeownership rate rises to highest level since 2008 (Reuters) and U.S. Homeownership Rate Soars to Highest Level Since 2008 (Bloomberg) are just two examples.
This was not the first time during the pandemic that a government data release came with a footnote. In early June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the official unemployment rate had fallen from 14.7 to 13.3 percent in May. However, the BLS also disclosed that a number of workers who were “unemployed on temporary layoff” due to the coronavirus were incorrectly classified as employed but “absent” from work. A correct classification would have yielded the much higher unemployment rate of 16.3 percent.
But to be clear, the lesson here is not that government agencies such as the Census Bureau or Bureau Labor Statistics are inept or that they are intentionally trying to misrepresent their data in some way; rather, it’s that conducting large-scale surveys is a difficult task—especially in the midst of such a volatile environment as a global pandemic.
In both of the instances described here, the Census Bureau and BLS were perfectly transparent in their press releases regarding caveats to their data. However, it is the journalists’ responsibility to perform their due diligence when reporting government statistics and to read the not-so-fine print. Otherwise, they risk undermining both their own credibility and that of the governmental institutions that provide us with essential macroeconomic data while misrepresenting the actual state of the housing market.
Staff Resource
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