Explaining the route to owner-occupation: A transatlantic comparison

This paper compares the transition of young adults from renting to first-time homeownership in Britain and the U.S. By adopting a common theoretical and methodological framework, we identify behavioural similarities and differences in transitions in the two countries. We find that the higher ownership rates among British young adults are caused by quicker transitions and our study sheds light on which factors contribute to this difference. We use British and U.S. longitudinal data sets for the analysis and a relative risk Cox hazard model in the empirical work. Although there are behavioural similarities in attaining first-time homeownership with regard to the demographic and housing market variables, there are substantial differences in the two populations' responses to income and wealth, where we find that young adults' transitions to homeownership in Britain are more responsive.