The decline in homeownership rates to near 50-year lows is partly to blame for the U.S. economy’s sluggish recovery from the last recession, new data suggest, the Wall Street Journal reported today. If the home-building industry had returned to the long-term average level of construction, it would have added more than $300 billion to the economy last year, or a 1.8 percent boost to gross domestic product, according to a study expected to be released today by the Rosen Consulting Group, a real estate consultant. In 2016, total spending on housing declined to 15.6 percent of GDP, a broad measure of goods and services produced across the U.S., compared with a 60-year average of nearly 19 percent. The share of spending specifically linked to new-home construction and remodeling likewise declined to 3.6 percent of GDP, just over half its pre-recession peak in 2005.
