The typical American homeowner now stays in the same house for 12 years, nearly double the 6.5-year median from 2005, according to Redfin’s homeowner tenure research. In Los Angeles, that number climbs to a full 20 years, the longest of any major U.S. metro. In Louisville, Kentucky, it’s just 8.3 years. The gap between those two cities isn’t a fluke of local taste, it’s a map of who can actually afford to move.
The National Number Doubled for a Reason
Twelve years is close to the peak tenure of 13.4 years Redfin recorded in 2020, and it’s a dramatic jump from the 6.5-year median in 2005, back when homeowners treated a house more like a stepping stone than a destination. Redfin’s research ties the shift directly to mortgage economics. “High mortgage rates and home prices perpetuate a cycle that locks up housing inventory,” said Chen Zhao, Redfin’s head of economics research, in the company’s report. Homeowners who locked in low fixed rates years ago face a steep financial penalty for trading that mortgage for a new one at today’s rates, so they simply don’t move, even when their space no longer fits their life.
Why Los Angeles Sits at the Extreme
Los Angeles homeowners stay put for 20 years on average, and San Jose isn’t far behind at 18.7 years, the two longest tenures Redfin measured anywhere in the country. Part of that is the same rate-lock effect playing out everywhere, but California adds a second layer: Proposition 13, the 1978 law that caps property tax increases as long as a homeowner doesn’t sell. A homeowner who bought decades ago in Los Angeles isn’t just avoiding a higher mortgage rate by staying, they’re avoiding a property tax bill that could jump substantially the moment they buy again at current market value. Selling in coastal California carries a tax penalty that simply doesn’t exist in most of the country, which helps explain why the state’s metros dominate the long-tenure rankings so completely.
Louisville and the Short-Tenure Cities
At the other end, Louisville’s 8.3-year median and Las Vegas’s 8.8 years point to a different dynamic entirely: affordability. In metros where home prices haven’t climbed as steeply, the financial gap between an old mortgage and a new one is smaller, so trading up, downsizing, or relocating for a job doesn’t carry the same penalty. Homeowners in these markets can move for a bigger yard or a shorter commute without triggering the kind of payment shock that keeps Angelenos in place for two decades.
What Long Tenure Does to the Rest of the Market
Every year a homeowner stays instead of selling is a home that doesn’t reach the market for a first-time buyer, a growing family, or someone relocating for work. Redfin’s research frames this as a structural shift rather than a temporary market condition, driven by an aging population of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers who own their homes outright or carry minimal remaining mortgage balances, giving them even less financial incentive to sell than younger owners locked into low rates. Multiply that pattern across millions of households and the inventory shortage that’s frustrated buyers for years starts to look less like a supply problem and more like a mobility problem. Even the slight dip from the 2020 peak of 13.4 years to today’s 12-year median hasn’t undone the broader trend; homeowners are still staying nearly twice as long as they did two decades ago, and nothing in current mortgage rates suggests that’s about to reverse.
What This Means If You’re Trying to Buy or Sell
For buyers, longer tenure in desirable metros means fewer listings to choose from and more competition for the ones that do appear, particularly in markets like Los Angeles and San Jose where inventory turns over the slowest. For homeowners weighing whether to sell, the math Redfin describes cuts both ways: staying preserves a low rate and, in California, a low tax bill, but it also means sitting out of a market where prices in many metros have kept climbing regardless. The homeowners who eventually break that twelve-year pattern will likely be the ones for whom the cost of staying finally outweighs the cost of moving, whatever city they happen to live in, whether that’s a growing family that outgrows a starter home or a retiree ready to trade a big yard for something easier to maintain.
