There are many reasons why someone might choose not to own their own home. Without doing any research whatsoever, two big reasons immediately come to mind:

1.) THEY'RE BROKE

or...

2.) THEY DON'T WANT TO

#2 resonates with me. As a man who's petrified of commitment, I can't warm up to the idea of planting roots in one place. I sort of like living like a vagabond. I know that as soon as I get too annoyed with the other trolls in my apartment complex, I can just pack up my few belongings and move to another part of the city (or even another city entirely). I enjoy having that illusion of freedom.

WHAT FACTORS INTO A CITY WITH FEWER HOMEOWNERS?

The website 24/7 Wall St. recently looked at cities with populations over 25,000 to see which ones had the lowest homeownership rate. In a majority of these cities, the average household income is less than the average income statewide.

A majority of the cities on the list are also big college towns. College towns means a huge chunk of the population are students living there temporarily while they earn their exorbitantly expensive degrees.

So what is the city in New York with the fewest homeowners? I expected it to be New York City, where EVERYTHING is the most expensive, but it's not.

ITHACA

Turns out Ithaca has the fewest number of home owners. Given the "college town" argument above, this makes sense-- Ithaca is home to both Ithaca College and Cornell University.

Here's how the data from 24/7 Wall St. breaks down:

Ithaca
> Homeownership rate: 25.1% (New York: 54.1%)
> Median home value: $261,900 (New York: $325,000)
> Median monthly housing costs (w/ a mortgage): $1,919 (New York: $2,174)
> Median monthly housing costs (no mortgage): $835 (New York: $781)
> Median household income: $38,019 (New York: $71,117)
> No. of cities considered in ranking: 63

Ithaca is not short on appeal -- it's a beautiful little city -- but apparently it's just a nice place to visit, and you wouldn't want to live there.