The 1950's were not all that great and they are not coming back

[Yo_Mama]

62. Rates, not percentage increase. Link to Harvard study

http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/jchs.harvard.edu/files/son_2016_200dpi_ch1.pdf

The above is the Executive Summary - see chart 2, which shows how deeply homeownership has fallen over a couple of decades for the younger cohort. The older cohort naturally has much higher rates of homeownership, and because the population as a whole has aged, demographics is masking a near-catastrophic drop in homeownership. Few households are able to successfully enter homeownership in their 50s, because they just don't have enough earning years left to pay off the mortgage.

Here's a link to the whole thing - it is good, and also discusses rents:
http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/research/state_nations_housing

Current homeownership rates data:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

Note that current homeownership rates are well below those of the 70s, and match the lows of the early 1980s (after a period of very high interest rates).

In addition, the real stat is much worse than it looks because the median age of the US population has risen sharply:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/241494/median-age-of-the-us-population/

Overall, the picture is of sharply decreasing household wealth and security, with a structural decline just built in.