US cities where homeownership fell most since 2000

Homeownership in the United States peaked just before the 2007 housing crisis and has not fully recovered. Some cities took an outsized share of that decline. Across US cities with 50,000 or more residents, the 25 where the homeownership rate fell most between 2000 and the latest ACS are below.

Wesley Chapel, Florida leads the drop at −20.3%, falling from 97.4% owner-occupied in 2000 to 77.1% today.

#	Place	2000	Latest	Change
1	Wesley Chapel, Florida	97.4%	77.1%	−20.3%
2	Pflugerville, Texas	89.6%	69.9%	−19.7%
3	Cedar Park, Texas	84.4%	66.7%	−17.7%
4	Parker, Colorado	89.3%	71.8%	−17.5%
5	Rowlett, Texas	92.2%	75.2%	−16.9%
6	Allen, Texas	85.7%	69.4%	−16.3%
7	Avondale, Arizona	77.6%	61.6%	−16.0%
8	Chino Hills, California	84.8%	69.2%	−15.6%
9	Irvine, California	60.0%	44.5%	−15.5%
10	Brandon, Florida	71.6%	56.2%	−15.4%
11	Frisco, Texas	81.3%	65.9%	−15.4%
12	Draper, Utah	83.8%	68.6%	−15.2%
13	Herriman, Utah	93.8%	78.6%	−15.2%
14	Mansfield, Texas	86.6%	71.5%	−15.1%
15	Rockville, Maryland	67.7%	52.6%	−15.0%
16	Dearborn Heights, Michigan	85.4%	70.5%	−15.0%
17	Apple Valley, Minnesota	88.0%	73.4%	−14.6%
18	Kyle, Texas	81.6%	67.1%	−14.6%
19	Leander, Texas	87.6%	73.4%	−14.2%
20	Broomfield, Colorado	76.8%	62.7%	−14.1%
21	Pharr, Texas	73.2%	59.1%	−14.0%
22	Lehigh Acres, Florida	83.7%	70.0%	−13.8%
23	Richardson, Texas	64.4%	50.7%	−13.7%
24	Mableton, Georgia	78.3%	64.6%	−13.7%
25	Eagle Mountain, Utah	98.1%	84.7%	−13.4%

Key findings

• Wesley Chapel, Florida leads the list at −20.3%.
• The 25th-ranked city on this list — Eagle Mountain, Utah — shows −13.4%.
• Across the full universe of 871 city rows with both data points, the typical change was −2.4%.
• The top decliners concentrate in Texas (10 of the top 25), Florida (3 of the top 25), Utah (3 of the top 25).

Where the pattern sits geographically

Texas (10 of the top 25), Florida (3 of the top 25), Utah (3 of the top 25) together account for the bulk of the top of this list. Click any city above to open its CensusEasy page, which carries the full historical time series for every metric we publish (income, education, housing, commute, race composition, industry mix), plus its rank within its state and its national percentile on each metric.

How to read this

This ranking is sorted by absolute change, not by percentage change. Absolute change is the figure that lines up with how readers experience these numbers in everyday life ("the typical household here earns $X more than in 1990"). The percentage-change framing surfaces a different set of city rows — usually places that started from a low base — and we publish those rankings separately on the rankings pages.

A single metric never tells the whole story. The largest decline on this list can reflect either change in the same population staying in place, or compositional change as some residents leave and others arrive. Companion studies on poverty, education, and housing cost together describe the fuller picture.

The biggest declines cluster in cities that saw heavy foreclosure activity during the 2008-2012 housing crisis and in cities where the renter share grew through new-build apartment construction. Companion studies on real rent growth and home-value growth track the cost dynamics behind the same shift.