34% of California’s homeowners are mortgage

In a five-year span, as mortgage rates hit all-time lows and affordability plummeted, the number of Californians with no home loans grew eight times faster than those who borrowed against their properties.

My trusty spreadsheet reviewed fresh Census Bureau data tracking homeownership and mortgages in the 50 states and the District of Columbia for 2024. It contrasted those patterns with 2019 data, before the pandemic upended the economy.

Remember, this five-year period saw mortgage rates — which averaged 7.7% in the past half-century — run below 3.5% for 40% of the time. But owners overall didn’t see low rates as an enticement to borrow. Instead, California’s mortgage-free homes increased by 16% over five years, compared with a 2% uptick among owners with mortgages.

And it’s no Californi