Homeownership Trends Having Little Effect on Multifamily Investment Even with a tick up in homeownership, the percentage of apartments that are vacant has not risen much since the pandemic began. Just because more people are buying homes, that doesn’t have to hurt the outlook for investment in rental apartments, according to housing economists. The percentage of people who own their own homes rose sharply in the second and third quarters of 2020, according to U.S. Census data. Usually such a spike would mean millions of renters had moved out of their apartments and bought homes of their own. And for much of 2020, there were many anecdotal stories of Americans relocating during the pandemic from urban apartments to suburbs or less expensive secondary and tertiary urban markets.