ATTOM Data Solutions has just published findings [1] from its most recent U.S. Home Sales Report. The report is a housing tenure analysis which covered the second quarter of 2020.
According to ATTOM’s Q2 2020 data, American homeowners who sold their properties during this second quarter had—on average across the nation—owned their homes for nearly 8 years (7.95) before placing them on the market. This number shows an increase from the previous quarter (Q1 2020), where homeowners held onto their homes for an average of 7.85 years on average.
ATTOM further broke down the data to provide which—among the U.S. metros with sufficient data to test—had the longest average homeownership tenures. Among the top 25 metro areas that had the longest average homeownership tenures, they were all located along the Coasts (both East and West).
The top five of these 25 metro areas were, in fact, all located in Connecticut. Specifically, they were the areas of Norwich (with an average of 12.84 years), Bridgeport (with an average of 12.39 years), New Haven (with an average of 12.21 years), Hartford (with an average of 12.01 years) and finally, Torrington (with an average of 11.67 years).
As for the metro areas where the smallest tenures were reported, those five titles belong to Colorado Springs, CO (with an average of 6.29 years), Oklahoma City, OK (with an average of 6.59 years), Grand Rapids, MI (with an average of 6.79 years), Denver, CO (with an average of 6.83 years), and Minneapolis, MN (with an average of 6.94 years).
Also included in ATTOM’s Q2 2020 home sales report was the fact that more than half (55 percent) of the metros areas that were included in the company’s analysis reported declines in average tenure from the first quarter of 2020 to the second quarter. The specific areas that were highlighted as showing the biggest declines in Q2 included Torrington, CT (which reported being down 10.9 percent), Yakima, WA (which reported being down 9.8 percent), Gainesville, FL (which reported being down 7.2 percent), Honolulu, HI (which reported being down 6.8 percent) and Springfield, MA (which reported being down 6.4 percent).
On the opposite end of the spectrum, and measuring counties, the report listed the top 10 counties with the largest increases in tenure, which were Stanly County, NC (which was up 34 percent), Box Elder County, UT (which was up 28 percent), Clark County, IN (which was up 27 percent), Kent County, DE (which was up 22 percent), Effingham County, GA (which was up 20 percent), Saint Tammany County, LA (which was up 19 percent), Oneida County, NY (which was up 18 percent), Trumbull County, OH (which was up 18 percent), Rockingham County, NC (which was up 18 percent), and Fauquier County, VA (which was up 17 percent