While an ultimate eulogy for single-family homes may be premature at this point, other options, such as renting, leasing and even co-ops in large metropolitan apartment buildings are rapidly taking over from full-time personal ownership which had been the mainstay of America’s residential markets.
Although government projections remain bullish on the residential market as a whole, the 1 million new units predicted for 2015 differ dramatically from the heyday that encompassed the post-World War II period and slightly past the change of the millennium. This pace radically declined during the Great Recession (2008-2010), dropping from an annualized 1.6 million to less than half that number by 2009.