29% of Homeowners Are Mortgage-Free

Including 34.5% of those homeowners ages 20 to 24
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 11, 2013 8:07 AM CST
29% of Homeowners Are Mortgage-Free
FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012, file photo, a "sold" sign sits out in front of a home in Riverview, Fla. Home prices increased in September in most major U.S. cities, more evidence of a housing recovery that is providing a lift to the fragile economy. Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller reported...   (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)

In a country ravaged by the housing crisis, a hefty chunk of homeowners—some 29.3%—have escaped the mortgage burden entirely, a new report by Zillow finds. A great deal of the 20.6 million Americans who own their homes outright are retirees: 77.6% of people 85 and older fully own their abodes, as do 62.7% of people 74 to 84. But plenty of the mortgage-free are also very young: Some 34.5% of homeowners ages 20 to 24 don't have mortgages, the according to Zillow's analysis.

The big cities with the highest proportions of homeowners without mortgages are Pittsburgh, Tampa, New York, Cleveland, and Miami, the Los Angeles Times reports. The lowest proportions are found in Washington, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Denver, and Charlotte. Expect more homeowners to be mortgage-free in the future, with baby boomers getting older and the credit crisis driving "more and more people to think that the best way they can prepare for retirement is with no mortgage at all," says an expert. (More housing market stories.)

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