Annual Rent Survey 2017

A survey of U.S. renters reveals a number of key insights into both the typical renter’s current living situation as well as their aspirations and levels of satisfaction on various topics.

One in five people (21% of those surveyed) do not plan to purchase a home in the future. While the vast majority of respondents currently rent their home, only 79% of all respondents want to buy in the future. This is a significant difference from last year’s survey results, where 90% of respondents reported they planned to buy a home in the future, and just 10% did not.

Respondents generally agree that home ownership is an excellent investment, though not overwhelmingly so, giving it a 3.76 average rating (on a scale of 1-5 disagree to agree scale). Notably, women agreed more strongly than men, non-binary/third gender or self-describing respondents.

In their last decision to rent vs. own, finance related reasons were the most common. The top specific factors considered by roughly half of all respondents are mortgage rates/credit (55%), cost differential (52%), and costs of home repair/maintenance (46%).

Respondents are more likely to plan on buying a home if their parents are homeowners however the opposite seems to be true with friends and colleagues. Respondents with a minority of friends as homeowners are the most likely to plan to buy a home in the future.

Though 79% of all respondents plan to buy a home in the future, almost half of all respondents (40%) are not currently saving any money at all out of their monthly income for a down payment. 19% are saving more than $400 monthly. Men are also saving more at a higher rate than women. Additionally, among those who plan to buy a home, 38% of all people have saved nothing to date for a down payment.

Review the entire survey below: