(CN) — The proportion of U.S. households that own homes has matched its lowest level in 51 years, the Census Bureau announced Thursday, evidence that Americans are feeling the sting of rising property prices and their stagnant incomes.
According to the government, just 62.9 percent of households owned a home in the April-June quarter this year, a decrease from 63.4 percent 12 months ago.
The share of homeowners now equals the rate in 1965, the first year the bureau tracked the data.
As detailed on the agency's website, millennials, as a group, are having the hardest time graduating to home ownership.
Their homeownership rate fell 0.7 percentage point over the past year to 34.1 percent.
A big reason is that home prices continue to outpace gains in average earnings.
The median home sales price was $247,700 in June, up 4.8 percent from a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors.
That increase is about twice the pace of average hourly wage gains.
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