Research
Top 10 US States by Homeownership Rate
PlainPropertyTax ranks US states by the share of housing units that are owner-occupied, using US Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the states table.
Research period:
Compiled by Plainpropertytax Editorial on 2026-06-09Research question
Across the 50 US states and the District of Columbia, which jurisdictions report the highest share of owner-occupied housing units, and how does homeownership rate correlate with state-level median income and median home value?
Methodology
This ranking is generated automatically from the U.S. Census Bureau's published dataset and reflects the most recently reported figures for each entity. The page updates whenever we refresh our copy of the source data, so the numbers always match the latest release we have ingested.
Coverage and exclusions: entities with no reported value for this metric are left out of the ranking rather than shown as zero, since a missing figure is not the same as an actual zero. U.S. Census Bureau occasionally withholds a value for confidentiality, small-sample, or quality-control reasons, and those withheld entries are excluded the same way.
Data provenance: U.S. Census Bureau publishes this dataset on its own release schedule, and we pull each new release as it becomes publicly available. If a later release revises a prior figure, the revised number will appear here automatically the next time we refresh our copy, no part of this page is hand-edited.
Editorial governance: PlainPropertyTax maintains an editorial standards process covering how rankings are built, how outliers are handled, and how corrections are processed if an entity disputes a figure attributed to it. A named editor reviews this page before publication, shown in the byline above. Corrections and clarifications can be requested through the contact channels linked in the site footer.
Transparency: every number on this page traces back to a specific U.S. Census Bureau source record, linked from the entity pages reachable from this ranking. See our methodology page for the full source list, update cadence, and how each figure is derived.
See the methodology page for the complete ETL pipeline, source vintage, and column lineage.
Top 10 US States by Homeownership Rate
Live data, updated automatically whenever we refresh our copy of the source
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects the most recent data we have on file. Refresh the page after we update our copy of the source to see the latest values.
| # | State | Homeownership rate | Median household income | Population |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Virginia | 74.88% | $59,608 | 1,778,373 |
| 2 | Maine | 74.28% | $74,733 | 1,387,817 |
| 3 | Michigan | 73.21% | $72,875 | 10,077,761 |
| 4 | Vermont | 73.18% | $81,203 | 647,106 |
| 5 | Delaware | 72.97% | $84,954 | 1,021,191 |
| 6 | New Hampshire | 72.77% | $99,031 | 1,394,868 |
| 7 | Minnesota | 72.21% | $89,062 | 5,739,445 |
| 8 | Idaho | 72.14% | $77,800 | 1,934,262 |
| 9 | South Carolina | 71.87% | $69,324 | 5,296,225 |
| 10 | Wyoming | 71.77% | $76,176 | 582,397 |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Housing Tenure (Table B25003). Values reflect our most recent copy of the source data. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Housing Tenure (Table B25003). Values reflect our most recent copy of the source data.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is West Virginia, with a value of 74.88% on the Homeownership rate column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the U.S. Census Bureau publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (74.88%) and the 10th-ranked record (71.77%) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The records in this ranking originate from U.S. Census Bureau, specifically the American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Housing Tenure (Table B25003). PlainPropertyTax ingests the source vintage published by the agency and republishes it here in a clear, browsable format. Every page reflects our most recent copy of the data, there is no stale cached export, and an update from the source agency propagates to this page within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and how each figure is derived.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
Homeownership rate from the US Census Bureau ACS measures the share of occupied housing units owned by an occupant rather than the share of households who own; the distinction matters because households with multiple roommates or extended families count as a single unit regardless of who holds title. High-homeownership states tend to be rural and predominantly single-family-home markets (West Virginia, Mississippi, Maine) where multifamily rental stock is limited and where the median home value is lower relative to median income, easing the path to ownership. Low-homeownership states like New York and California carry both high home prices and large urban rental markets where renting dominates by structural housing-stock composition. Homeownership rate does not measure equity, mortgage status, or affordability, a homeowner with a heavy mortgage carries different financial exposure than an outright owner, and a low-homeownership state may carry lower property tax incidence because renters pay property tax indirectly through landlord pricing rather than directly.
Secondary cut from the same source
Top 10 US states by median household income, adjacent to homeownership rate in shaping property-tax incidence
Sources
- US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates - https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs