Who's more likely to own a home, a firefighter or a lawyer?

Fire fighters rank well above lawyers and judges in terms of home ownership rates in the USA according to an analysis by Ancestry.com

What do optometrists, firefighters and farmers have in common?

They are among the professions with America's highest home ownership rates, according to an analysis by Ancestry.com, a popular genealogy Website that compiled U.S. Census data on home ownership rates by profession.

Michelle Ercanbrack, a family historian at Ancestry.com, said the results suggest that income and home ownership are not always closely tied.

For instance, fire fighters (84 per cent of whom own a home) rank well above lawyers and judges (78 per cent), and physicians and surgeons (78 per cent). Looking further down the rankings, teachers (74 per cent) landed many slots above economists (64 per cent.) Reporters and editors fare worse than all of the above at with 62 per cent, down from 64 per cent in 2010.

Top 10 professions for US home ownership in 2012

• Optometrists: 90 per cent
• Toolmakers and Die Makers/Setters: 88 per cent
• Dentists: 87 per cent
• Power Station Operators: 87 per cent
• Forgemen and Hammermen: 84 per cent
• Inspectors: 84 per cent
• Firemen: 84 per cent
• Locomotive Engineers: 84 per cent
• Airplane Pilots and Navigators: 83 per cent
• Farmers: 81 per cent

(Ancestry.com.)

Ercanbrack said the professions that are highest on the list tend to be those in which close community ties are key to the job.

"It makes sense for people with a local, clientele-based occupation to own a home and be fairly well-established in the area in which they work," she said.

While the best-paid professions do not dominate the top of the list, the professions with the lowest home ownership rate have a mean hourly wage of $20 or less, the analysis said.

Bottom 10 profession for US home ownership in 2012

• Dancers and Dance Teachers: 23 per cent
• Motion Picture Projectionists: 27 per cent
• Waiters and Waitresses: 27 per cent
• Counter and Fountain Workers: 28 per cent
• Members of the Armed Forces: 33 per cent
• Service Workers: 34 per cent
• Bartenders: 35 per cent
• Cleaners: 35 per cent
• Cashiers: 36 per cent
• Cooks: 36 per cent

(Ancestry.com.)

In its analysis, Ancestry.com categorized 179 jobs based on the 2012 Census after scrapping any occupations with an inadequate sample size.

Taking the long view, Ercanbrack says impressive strides have been made in U.S. home ownership. The home ownership rate has doubled since 1900, though nearly all of that gain was made by the 1960s.

"The opportunity to own land was one of America's number one draws because that was not an option in many places," Ercanbrack said. "While there are other economic factors we're grappling with, it's good to put it into perspective historically."

Still, some policy makers are not satisfied, convinced that too many Americans are getting shut out of home ownership, and missing out on an important wealth-building opportunity that can also create jobs for the economy.

In the early 1990s, with the economy growing and the home ownership hovering around 64 percent, President Bill Clinton wanted to expand home ownership. The administration came up with a strategy that aimed to take home ownership to an all-time high and make it easier for 8 million more people to purchase homes by 2000.

The push continued in the George W. Bush administration, which unveiled its "Ownership Society" platform in 2004, and challenged the real estate and mortgage industries to seek out minorities in particular. The initiative's goal was to increase the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million before the end of that decade.

The home ownership rate eventually reached an all-time high of 69 percent in 2004 during the housing bubble. But after the housing market crashed, that rate dropped to 65 percent in 2013 - the lowest annual annual rate in 19 years.

At a recent conference, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro said he'll be pushing for higher rates. "It's time to remove the stigma associated with home ownership," Castro said.

-Washington Post