The Impact of Homeownership on Criminal Activity: Empirical Evidence from United States’ County Level Data

This paper utilizes county-level census data and Uniform Crime Reports for the United States to isolate the impact of homeownership on crime rates. After controlling for other influences, in particular income’s impact on homeownership rates, we find that the homeownership itself has a strong and statistically significant negative effect on both violent and property crime rates. Moreover, we find that increases in homeownership rates reduce criminal activity over time. Our results suggest that federal, state, and local policies as well as other initiatives, such as Habitat for Humanity, that support homeownership, will have substantial positive spill-over effects on the social fabric of a given community.