Millionaire Renters Are Surging—Why the Rich Aren’t Buying

More of America’s highest-income households are choosing not to turn their purchasing power into homeownership in a rental market that offers them more flexibility, mobility, and choice.The number of U.S. households earning at least $1 million a year while renting the home they live in rose 229% between 2020 and 2024, climbing to about 18,400 households, according to a new RentCafe analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.“Standard measures treat renting as a fallback for people who can’t buy. Here, the top of the income distribution may increasingly be renting by choice,” explains Realtor.com® senior economist Hannah Jones.Millionaire homeowner households also grew rapidly over the same period, rising 193%. Renters still make up only a small share of $1 million-income households, but their share rose from 8% to just under 9%, according to Jones.The timing makes even that modest shift notable. The period included both the ultralow mortgage rates and homebuying boom early in the COVID-19 pandemic and the steep run-up in home prices and borrowing costs that followed.If any group had the purchasing power to navigate those swings, households earning seven figures did—and yet renting still g...