, Columnist
If You Rent, Your Troubles Are Coming to an End
But not so much if you're looking to buy a home.
Easing up.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Renters can finally breathe a sigh of relief: The nation's decade-long shift away from homeownership -- which had made renting exorbitantly expensive -- appears to be over. This will be great for builders and real-estate agents, but not so much for prospective home buyers.
Why do I think we've witnessed a generational peak in renting? For one, the data point in that direction. In the year through June, the number of home-owning households increased by 1.26 million, according to the Census Bureau. Renting households, by contrast, declined for the first time since 2004: