Pa. Homeowners Have the Third Deepest Roots

Pennsylvania has the third-most long-tenured homeowners, which are homeowners who’ve lived in their homes for 24 years or more, according to an analysis by This Old House.

Long-tenured homeowners make up a whopping 34.6% of Pennsylvania homeowners, trailing behind only Hawaii (35.8%) and New York (34.8%).

Additionally, some of the deepest-rooted metro areas in the country can be found in Pennsylvania, with several locations across the state seeing exceptionally high percentages of long-tenured homeowners. Pennsylvania towns in the top 25 metro areas include:

• No. 1: Johnstown, 49.7%
• No. 3: Scranton—Wilkes-Barre, 41%
• No. 6: Altoona, 39.6%
• No. 12: Bloomsburg-Berwick, 38.1%
• No. 13: Pittsburgh, 37.6%
• No. 14: Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio-Pennsylvania, 37.6%
• No. 18: Gettysburg, 36.6%
• No. 22: Williamsport, 35.9%

Conversely, the top five states with the most short-tenured homeowners (homeowners who have lived in their homes for five years or less) are: Arizona (35%), Nevada (34%), Florida (34%), Utah (33%) and Colorado (33%).

Regionally, homeowners in the Northeast have some of the deepest roots. Part of this may be because many states in that region also have higher percentages of homeowners ages 75 and older.

This Old House also surveyed 1,008 homeowners across the country to learn more about the reasons homeowners stay or leave. Of those respondents, 68% said they had no moving plans, 26% were considering moving and 6% were moving. At 58%, Gen Z was the generation that most said they were moving or considering moving, while baby boomers were the generation that most said they planned on living in their current home forever (52%). Overall, 37% of all respondents said they had no plans on ever moving.

According to the survey, homeowners’ top reasons for staying in their current homes were:

• Affordability, 57%
• Community/neighborhood, 50%
• Family, 41%
• Safety/low crime rate, 36%
• Location convenience, 36%

And the top reasons homeowners said they might consider leaving their current homes were:

• Finances, 43%
• High cost of living, 34%
• Lifestyle change, 29%
• Job relocation, 29%
• Upsizing/downsizing, 26%