It would be difficult to overstate the link between housing affordability and the current dog population trends in the U.S.
Housing affordability is a complex issue driven by wages (for the majority who depend on work income rather than investment income or capital gains), housing prices, mortgage interest and homeowners’ insurance rates, the amount of housing stock for sale in relation to demand, building material costs for new home construction and the level of investment capital wielded to purchase residential property as rentals.
High mortgage interest rates create barriers to home purchasing affordability not only in themselves, but in triggering a “mortgage lock-in effect” among those with low, pre-pandemic rates (below 3% or 4%, compared to over 6% currently). As reported in the Washington Post (January 11, 2026), “People are loath to sell their homes when it means giving up a cheap loan for a significantly more expensive one,” which becomes another factor that raises prices by reducing the supply of houses for sale. This dynamic could remain a “major factor” in the housing market for another four to five years, according to Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather.
The relationship between home ownership and pet ownership
Much simpler, especially in the case of dogs, is the relationship between home ownership and pet ownership (see Table 1). MRI-Simmons’ Fall 2025 data show dog ownership rates at:
- 45% among single-family homeowners
- 33% among single-family home renters
- 24% among multi-family homeowners
- 17% among multi-family home renters
Among those living in mobile homes, a classification separate from single-family homes, dog ownership rates edge out those for single-family homeowners (at 46% vs. 45%), indicating that the “fences make good neighbors” fact of having your own four walls boosts dog ownership. With that said, mobile home residents account for only 6% of the national household population.
The current single-family home affordability crisis, therefore, creates overwhelming headwinds to dog (and especially larger dog) population growth, a drag that dog-inclusive improvements in rental housing policies can only partially counteract.
Moreover, while single-family home ownership is most conducive to dog ownership, and multi-family housing rental least conducive, the broader affordability crisis for essential goods and services means that dog ownership rates have fallen across residence types and ownership classifications.
Even for single-family homeowners, dog ownership rates fell from 49% in 2019 to 45% in 2025. The recent declines in dog ownership rates have, more generally, been disproportionately concentrated among prime dog-owning demographics by housing type — particularly single-family home renters and mobile home residents — rather than among multi-family housing residents, whether owned or rented.
The politics of affordable housing
While many of the standard academic economic metrics (such as GDP, Gross Domestic Product) steer well clear of political salience at the individual household level, the affordability of housing (like food and healthcare) is obviously political. As reported by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) in its 2025 State of the Nation’s Housing report, “Home price appreciation [has] combined with elevated interest rates to drive up homebuyers’ mortgage payments, pricing less affluent households out of the for-sale market.” The JCHS estimates average monthly mortgage payments on a median-priced home at US$2,570 in 2024, up 40% from 1990 average mortgage payments after adjusting for inflation.
It is in this context that U.S. President Donald Trump recently used social media to call on Congress to ban deep-pocketed investors from purchasing single-family homes as rental investments — as has been a trend for over a decade but can lower home affordability and price out first-time home buyers in particular. However, as reported by the New York Times (January 7, 2026), this populist proposal “has long failed” to gain traction on Wall Street or in Congress, with Business Insider (January 9, 2026) similarly reporting the proposed ban raised both alarm and skepticism within the real estate industry.
At any rate, given its strong link to single-family home ownership and the macroeconomic affordability crisis, growth in dog ownership — a discretionary expense, especially in relation to puppy adoption — is unlikely to occur without a reversal of the current housing cost crisis.
