One outcome of the global financial crisis has been a decline in owner-occupation in many countries. This has particularly hit those countries where private sector funding has been readily available as a result of the deregulation of housing and more general financing systems. In some countries, there was also a suggestion that policy to encourage owner-occupation might have pushed rates too far for sustainability. The two main reasons for the decline are of course not hard to identify: the increase in foreclosures, as households have been unable to keep up their repayments; and the near closure of the wholesale mortgage-backed securities market associated with the wider credit crunch. This has meant that even households wanting to buy and able to pay, at least by traditional criteria, have not been able to obtain a mortgage. In turn there are two distinct questions now being asked: will owner-occupation return to the levels observed in mid-decade once economies return to something like normal: and should governments still continue to encourage the expansion of owner-occupation in the ways that they have been in the past. But there is also a more fundamental question: are the underlying trends in owner-occupation quite as straightforward as has been assumed or were there anyway changes in behavior that might modify future trajectories? In this paper we draw on a number of earlier studies and secondary sources to examine first how owner-occupation rates and their growth have varied across countries; second, what has happened in and after earlier crises; third, whether there are pointers to the future from underlying trends; and finally where policy might go in the future.