The share of homes without a mortgage varied widely by state: 29.0% in Maryland (the lowest share after the District of Columbia’s 24.3%) to a high of 53.9% in West Virginia (Figure 1).

The share increased from 2014 in every state and in the District of Columbia. In New Mexico, the share of mortgage-free homes grew from 41.5% to 48.5%. In contrast, North Dakota’s share grew by just 1.5 percentage points between 2014 and 2024.

The share of homes owned free and clear also varied widely at the county level (Figure 2). Rural areas were more likely than urban counties to have high rates of mortgage-free homeowners.

According to the 2024 5-year ACS estimates, 493 counties – many in or near large metro areas, Southern California and along the Eastern Seaboard – had shares below 40%.

Many of the 2,204 counties where over 40% of homeowners were mortgage-free in 2024 were in rural and less populated areas.

The share in 446 counties was not statistically different from 40%.

While the geographic distribution was similar, fewer counties had high mortgage-free ownership rates in the previous 5-year period (Figure 3).

In 2014, 1,870 counties had a rate greater than 40%, again in more rural areas of the country, while 803 counties had free and clear rates below 40%.

Metropolitan counties in states across the South were among those with the greatest growth in mortgage-free ownership (Table 1).

In Chattahoochee County, Georgia, the share of homeowners without a mortgage grew by 18.9 percentage points to 69.0% between 2014 and 2024. Several other metropolitan counties in Georgia and other southern states – Alabama, Kentucky, Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina – were also among those with the highest growth.

Several counties outside of the South were among those with the highest growth in mortgage-free ownership. Among them: Torrance County, New Mexico in the West, as well as Boone County, Illinois, Linn County, Kansas, and Dakota County, Nebraska, in the Midwest.

But some metro counties’ share of mortgage-free homeowners dropped over this period (Table 2).

In Camden County, North Carolina, the percentage of homes owned free and clear dropped nine points. 

More urban counties had lower shares of mortgage-free homeowners but were more likely to see significant increases during the decade, while rural counties with higher shares saw no significant change.

Figure 4 shows the percentage point change in free and clear homeownership between 2014 and 2024 for all counties except those whose borders changed during the period.

Nearly half of all counties (1,577) saw statistically significant growth. Only 49 counties had a statistically significant decline in free and clear ownership shares.

In the Northeast, 180 counties experienced significant growth in mortgage-free ownership, while only 29 had no significant change and none declined.

In the South, 653 counties saw a significant increase and 746 had no significant change.