Since 2000, the center city district's numbers show, the population of Philadelphia's expanding core has climbed to 93,000, from 78,900. Thirty percent of those residents fall into 25-to-34 age group. The median age of U.S. home buyers is 39, the National Association of Realtors says. Empty nesters from the suburbs also have been part of the movement to the city, and large numbers of them rent initially. "The increase in both population and our housing stock - both of which are disproportionately located in Center City - are the underlying reasons behind this rise in the rental rate," said economist Kevin Gillen, vice president of Econsult Corp. "Much of the population growth has come from young households, which are more inclined to rent. There are at least four sources of rental demand, Levy said: newly forming households; college and graduate students; young people staying after college or coming for jobs; and potential buyers who have decided to wait and rent. "All four have caused rents to go up even as supply has increased," he said, "so this type of growth is good for the downtown." The expansion of health-care and education employment has been a boon to the Center City rental market as well as the economy there, which Levy said had remained "remarkably stable," partly because 42 percent of residents work downtown as well as live there. What strikes Moody's Analytics economist Mark Zandi is how high the city's homeownership rate - 54.1 percent - remains compared with comparable cities in the Northeastern United States and elsewhere. "High home-ownership is one of the economic strengths and charms of Philadelphia," he said.
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