Millennials leaving the basement to buy homes

THERE are two themes I find endlessly fascinating about real estate. One is its enormous role in the financial crisis. The other is the steep decline in homeownership after the crisis.

Let's take a closer look at some of the data, to see if there are any insights to be gleaned. Homeownership in the United States peaked in 2004, when 69.2 per cent of all US households owned their dwellings. The rate bottomed at 62.9 per cent in the second quarter of 2016, a level not seen since 1965.

But here what really interesting: the rate has since risen sharply to 64.2 per cent. Many forces are behind the rise, including falling unemployment, soaring rents, increasing interest rates and millennials finally integrating into the workforce after so much difficulty during and for several years after the Great Recession. Let's look at bit closer at each in turn: