The cost of homes in the U.S. continues to rise, led by 16 consecutive months of year-over-year price increases among existing homes. While new home construction has started to increase to meet the growing demand, national homeownership is declining, and median rental prices hit an all-time high in June.

Despite encouraging signs from the construction and homebuilding industries in recent months, homeownership continues to regress in the U.S., returning to levels that were common before the housing boom and bust.

As more families complete the long-delayed foreclosure process and enter rental homes, ownership is expected to bottom out at about 64 percent in the next year, according to a May analysis by London-based Capital Economics Inc. The current 18-year low is still slightly higher than the historical average, which averaged about 64 percent for 30 years through 1995.

Despite the decline, the median home price rose 13.5 percent in June from a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors. The share of first-time buyers, which historically averaged about 40 percent, has fallen to 29 percent, according to the Realtors' group. First-time buyers and minorities have seen the sharpest declines since the crash. While property ownership among senior citizens remained roughly 81 percent, the share of homeowners younger than 35 fell to about 37 percent from almost 42 percent five years earlier.

Families shuttling from distressed homes to rental units have had a record effect on national rent prices. The median asking rent for US vacant housing units hit an all time high of $735 per month in the second quarter of 2013, a 2.37 percent increase from the first quarter and a 2.65 percent increase year-over-year.