Legit question. Complicated topic. Yes, I think that happened and not clear the effect or extent of it. Capital income from housing is complicated and messy t

Legit question. Complicated topic. Yes, I think that happened and not clear the effect or extent of it. Capital income from housing is complicated and messy to study partly because of imputed rents. This leads to weird situations where expensive homes whether you live in it, rent it, rent it at loss (or leave it empty) can be counted as rent. My guess is a big reason for the decline over the last ~10 years is housing prices took a hit after the financial crises in 2007/2008. It looks like owner-occupied went down more than tenant-occupied based on Figure 2 in the link. Article on the weirdness of imputed rent: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/taxing-homeowners-as-if-they-were-landlords/?_r=0 http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/taxing-homeowne... Keep in mind this is broad national-level macro economics work and its theories, and so mostly total bullshit.