Dive Brief:

• The housing recovery "lost momentum" in 2014, dropping the rate of homeownership to a 22-year low and fueling a huge increase in the number of rental households, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Research.

• Chris Herbert, the center's managing director, said the dip in homeownership to 64.5% last year "erases nearly all of the increase from the previous two decades." 2014 marked the eighth straight year that the number of homeowners fell.

• The center's State of the Nation's Housing report also pointed to "an exceptionally strong demand for rental housing," making the 2010s so far the "strongest decade for renter growth in history." The report revealed that growth of renters ages 45 to 64 is twice that of tenants younger than 35.

Dive Insight:

The report didn't offer much good news to homebuilders, although it noted that the onslaught of demand from renters has pushed the vacancy rate to its lowest point in 20 years, which lent to more multifamily construction starts in 2014 than during any year since 1989.

Still, many of those renters are "cost burdened," the report noted, with housing costs totaling more than 30% of their income.