In December, Trulia released its first post-election survey results that uncovered Americans’ waning belief in homeownership as the cornerstone of “The American Dream.” The number of Americans who said becoming homeowners was a goal dropped 3 percentage points to 72 percent — the first time that’s happened in the past five years of Trulia’s survey-taking.
That’s not terribly surprising — the National Association of Realtors has consistently lamented over the 50-year homeownership lows, warning that they could drop even lower due to the lack of affordable housing, tight inventory and other economic strains, such as student loans and low wages.
These factors have especially impacted homeownership rates for low-income and communities of color — except for one.
According to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP), the Hispanic homeownership rate has increased for two years in a row to a rate of 46 percent. This is in conjunction with an increase of 300,000 in net household formations.
This is in contrast to 0.3 percentage point drop in overall homeownership rate (63.4 percent), the 0.8 percentage point drop in African-American homeownership rates (42.2) and 1 percentage point drop in Asian-American homeownership rates (55.5 percent).
NAHREP credits this increase in homeownership to the Hispanic community’s “high workforce participation,” and “fervent desire to own a home.”
“With credit remaining tight and limited housing inventory in several markets, these numbers are extremely encouraging and a testament to the economic resilience of the Hispanic community,” said 2016 NAHREP President Joseph Nery in a statement.
“As the mortgage industry continues to recognize the exceptional opportunities in serving the Hispanic market and adjusts accordingly, we expect these numbers to only improve.”