The U.S. homeownership rate hit the highest level in almost 12 years in the second quarter during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, but the gain could be a data collection fluke, Yahoo Finance reported. The rate grew to 67.9% in the second quarter, the highest since the third quarter of 2008 and up from 65.3% in the first quarter, according to the Census Bureau. The 2.7-percentage-point jump was also the largest on record. But the bureau said the rate could have been affected by the data-collection methods in the second quarter, which relied on only telephone surveys and no in-person interviews, which were suspended on March 20 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. As a result, the response rate was 12 percentage points lower than in the first quarter. Still, experts said an increase in the rate would not have been out of line of the recent trend in increasing homeownership, largely because of millennials taking advantage of low mortgage rates. Last week, the rate on the 30-year mortgage was 3.01%, just barely higher than the all-time low of 2.98% it hit in the prior week, according to Freddie Mac.
