The Typical U.S. Homeowner Stays Put For 11.8 Years. In Parts of California, It’s Closer to 20 Years.

The typical Los Angeles homeowner stays put for 19.4 years, longer than any other U.S. metro and the longest span on record for the area. Nationwide, median homeowner tenure is down from its pandemic peak, but nearly double what it was in the early aughts. 

The typical U.S. homeowner stays in their house for 11.8 years. But homeowners in California, where Proposition 13 can lock owners into low property-tax rates, are staying put much longer. 

In Los Angeles, where homeowners hold onto their houses longer than any other U.S. metro, the median tenure was 19.4 years in 2024–the longest span on record for the area. It’s followed closely by San Jose, with a median tenure of 18.3 years. Homeowners in San Francisco, San Diego and Riverside also stay put longer than the average American. 

California is also home to three of the five U.S. metros with the biggest increases in homeowner tenure over the last decade. Providence, RI had the biggest uptick, hitting a median tenure of 16.8 years in 2024, up from 10.9 years in 2014. It’s followed by Los Angeles, San Jose, New Orleans and San Francisco.

This data is from a Redfin analysis of median homeowner tenure by year in the U.S. as of 2024, using historical county records. The data in this report goes back through 2005. Tenure for 2024 is defined as the number of years between the most recent sale date of a home and December 1, 2024.

Homeowners stay put in California because they’re locked into low property taxes

California homeowners tend to hold onto their houses for a long time because a state tax law incentivizes them to do so. Proposition 13, adopted in 1978, mandates that homeowners pay property taxes of 1% of their home’s assessed value, and strictly limits tax increases. 

Here’s an example: Say you bought a home in Los Angeles for $200,000 in 1990. Based on Prop 13’s 1% property-tax rule, you would have paid $2,000 in state property taxes the first year. Today, 35 years later, you would still pay under $5,000 in annual property taxes because Prop 13 limits the increase in the assessed value of a property to 2% per year, regardless of actual changes in the home’s value. A similar home in Los Angeles today may now cost around $1.2 million, which means you would pay $12,000 in annual property taxes if you bought the home now. 

For a lot of California homeowners, especially in expensive coastal areas like Los Angeles  and San Francisco, it doesn’t make financial sense to more than double their property-tax rate to buy a similar home in the same area.

Prop 13 is also a factor in homeowner tenure increasing significantly over the last decade. But it’s exacerbated by the rapid rise in mortgage rates over the last three years. 

Now, many California homeowners are locked in not just by low property taxes, but by low mortgage rates. Mortgage rates hovered between 3% and 5% from 2010 to the start of 2022, dropping to a record low of under 3% at the height of the pandemic moving frenzy. Since early 2022, mortgage rates have been sitting in the 6% to 8% range. Selling a home where you pay a 3% mortgage rate to move  and take on a 7% rate would significantly increase a homeowner’s monthly payment–and in California, your property tax bill would also jump. 

“Long-term homeowners tend to have low monthly payments. If they were to move–even using their equity as a down payment–they would have a much higher monthly payment because home prices and interest rates have soared over the last several years,” said Gregory Eubanks, a Redfin Premier agent in Los Angeles. “Many older homeowners are adding on and creating a multigenerational home, with their kids and grandkids moving onto the property. And even many people who do move hang onto their house and rent it out because low property taxes and low monthly payments make them view it as a financial asset.”

Redfin Senior Economist Sheharyar Bokhari noted that it’s understandable that many Californians hang onto their homes, as they’re financially motivated to do so. “But it’s a problem for young people trying to break into the state’s notoriously expensive housing market,” Bokhari said. “Tight inventory only pushes home prices up more, and adds to the generational homeownership divide.” 

It’s worth noting that California’s Proposition 19, which was designed to allow older homeowners to keep relatively low tax rates when they move, went into effect in 2020. It’s unclear how effective Prop 19 has been at freeing up housing inventory. 

Providence, RI is the only metro where tenure has increased more than L.A. Tenure is shortest in Louisville, KY and other relatively affordable places.

The only major metro with a bigger increase in homeowner tenure than Los Angeles is Providence, RI, where one of the main factors is an aging population. The average Providence homeowner is 54, older than nearly every other major U.S. metro. Older people have typically owned their home longer than younger people, and they’re less likely to move. 

Tenure is shortest in Louisville, KY, where the typical homeowner stays put for 8 years, followed by Las Vegas (8.4) and Charlotte, NC (8.7). One reason for short tenure in those places is that the relative affordability of buying a house encourages moving. The typical home in each of those three metros sells for under $440,000, compared to roughly $900,000 in Los Angeles and $1.5 million in San Jose.

Nationwide, the typical homeowner stays put for roughly 12 years–down from 2020’s peak

Zooming out to the nation as a whole, homeowner tenure has flattened out over the last few years. After peaking at 13.4 years in 2020, average tenure declined to 11.8 years nationwide in 2023 and stayed the same in 2024. 

Homeowner tenure declined slightly each year from 2020 to 2023 mainly because of the pandemic-driven moving frenzy. At the start of the pandemic, record-low mortgage rates and the increasing prevalence of remote work motivated many Americans to move.

Tenure stayed the same from 2023 to 2024 because home sales were slow due to high mortgage rates and sale prices. 

Still, homeowners are holding onto their houses for nearly twice as long as they were in the early aughts. The typical homeowner stayed put for 6.5 years in 2005, then tenure gradually increased over the next 15 years. 

There are several reasons for the increase. The American population has grown older, and older people are less likely than younger people to move. Gen Zers and millennials typically stay in homes for shorter periods because they’re switching jobs and starting families. But baby boomers and older Gen Xers–who are more likely to be homeowners–tend to be settled in with less reason to relocate, and they’re increasingly choosing to age in place. Additionally, they’re financially incentivized to stay put; many older Americans own their homes free and clear, and those who do have a mortgage very likely have a lower rate than they would have today. 

Long homeowner tenure is an obstacle for first-time buyers all over the country, not just in California, because it contributes to the country’s housing shortage and pushes sale prices higher. Housing costs are unlikely to drop significantly unless many people start letting go of their houses.