Fewer Americans are moving to new homes today than at any time since the government began keeping track, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which found just 8.4% of Americans moved in the last year.

That’s the lowest rate of movement recorded at any time since 1948, the agency reported. That means that about 27.1 million people changed homes in the last year, also the lowest number in recorded history.

America’s aging population, coupled with the fallout from the Great Recession last decade and the ongoing pandemic, have all contributed to the country’s sedentary population, Cheryl Russell, author of the Demo Memo blog, said.

“The geographic mobility rate has been falling for decades, so it is no surprise that the current numbers are the lowest ever recorded. In fact, the U.S. has set a new record low in geographic mobility in every year since 2015-2016,” Russell said. “The trend is clear: Americans are increasingly likely to stay put.” 

About one in five Americans moved homes in a given year between the 1950s and 1960s, Russell said. That dropped to 14% by 2000 and has fell further to just shy of 12% last decade.

The lack of movement has led to a reduced inventory of homes for sale, according to real estate website Zillow.

As people age, they tend to move less, and America’s falling birthrate, which stands at an all-time low, has meant that fewer people need to move, Zillow Senior Population Scientist Edward Berchick said.

All these factors has led to stiff competition for homes when they do come on the market, Berchick said.

“Despite low interest rates and an increased desire among renters to buy their next home, [Zillow data] suggests that homebuying became more challenging than past years. The typical buyer submitted two offers, up from just one offer that typical buyers consistently reported making [from 2018 to 2020],” he said.

First-time buyers also got more scarce: They represented 43% of buyers when surveyed in 2020, but only 37% in 2021.

“Coupled with low inventory, a busy mortgage market may have added hurdles to an already challenging housing market,” Berchick added.

At the same time, mortgage buyers were 50% more likely to report facing at least one mortgage application denial before ultimately being approved in 2021 than they were in the previous year, he said.

With so much uncertainty in the economy and unfavorable rigors in the market, “people just pause their plans,” he said.

Those who are looking for a home are also encountering some of the highest prices ever recorded. The typical home hit $312,000 in 2021, up 19% over the last year, and prices are forecasted to rise another 13% in 2022.

Prices are rising not only in big cities like New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., but in smaller mid-sized metropolitan areas, according to data compiled by Realtor.com, an online real estate listing agent. The hottest markets in the U.S. are in Manchester, N.H., Burlington, N.C., east of Greensboro, and Eureka, Calif, the website reported.

One of the biggest drivers in keeping Americans sedentary is an aging population, according to a report released earlier this year by the U.S. Administration for Community Living (ACL). The country has never had so many residents over the age of 65, the report said.

Folks who are age 65 and older numbered 54.1 million in 2019, the most recent year for which data is available, the report said. They represented 16% of the population, more than one in every seven Americans.

It’s an age when people are most likely to own their own home and feel less pressure to move, which keeps a growing segment of the population in the homes they own now, Russell said.

While inventory dwindles and prices rise, the Census Bureau found the total number of housing units grew by just 6.6% between 2010 and 2020, while the number of vacant units dropped by 8.6%, a sign of a market that is tightening rather than expanding.

Population growth has surpassed growth in the housing supply and there are no signs that will reverse in the near term, Berchick said.