Why home finance researchers have studied homeowners' pets

Unusual metric has uncovered some interesting trends

Why home finance researchers have studied homeowners' pets

The many analysts and researchers who study home finance generally focus on numbers, people, locations, and economics; pets are rarely considered important.

But a new analysis of data from the American Housing Survey by the Urban Institute has revealed some interested information from this unusual source.

As the researchers point out, pets play a big part in home choices and with the millennial generation delaying marriage and having fewer children, pet ownership may become a bigger factor in the US housing market.

The choices that people will make if they have pets – and if they have pets rather than children – may be different to traditional choices made at certain stages of life.

The Urban Institute’s team – Sarah Strochak, Laurie Goodman, and Jun Zhu – have uncovered five trends from their research.

  1. Only those households headed by 30-44 year olds were more likely to have children than pets. Pet ownership is 40-60% for households in their 20s through to 70s and peaks in their 40s.
  2. Homeowners are more likely than renters to have pets – 57% vs. 37%.
  3. Married adults more likely than singles to have pets. But singles more likely to have pets than children.
  4. White families most likely to have pets but least likely to have both pets and children.
  5. Americans are increasingly choosing pets over children.

The team concludes that they will watch the data in the future to see if pet ownership is affecting housing choices.