The American Dream is losing its keys.

The number of US homeowners fell in 2025 — the first time in nearly a decade the figure has dropped, according to a realty company RedFin .

About 86.19 million Americans belonged to the picket-fence crowd as of April 1, down 0.1% from the 86.28 million who owned homes at the same point in 2024.

The United States last saw a drop in home ownership in the second quarter of 2016, when there were 74.36 million deed holders — down 0.1% from the 74.4 million at the same point in 2015. 3

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The key metric had steadily increased each year since then, climbing to 75.41 million in 2017, 78.01 million in 2018, and 78.42 million in 2019 and so on — until now.

Over a decade of low mortgage rates since the 2008 financial crisis had helped people buy

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