U.S. Housing Stock Aging Fast

"The nation’s housing stock is quickly aging," according to a recently published Daily News item on the Realtor Mag website.

"The median age of an owner-occupied home rose to 37 years in 2015, up from 31 years a decade ago, according to the latest data from the 2015 American Community Survey," according to the post.

In another way of looking at the trend, the article adds: "As of 2015, more than half of the housing stock in the U.S. was built prior to 1980. Thirty-eight percent of the homes were built prior to 1970. Meanwhile, homes constructed after 2000 comprise 19 percent of the housing stock." The article includes a map showing a state-by-state breakdown of media home ages.

The Realtor Mag article pulls its conclusions from an article by Na Zhao on the National Association of Home Builders' Eye on Housing blog. Zhao offers additional infographics to parse out findings about the age of the nation's housing stock and commentary about the causes of the aging trend. According to Zhao, the modest pace of residential construction since the Great Recession has exacerbated the aging of the nation's housing stock.