According to a recent report from the Urban Institute, Latinos will account for more than 70 percent of the growth in home ownership over the next 20 years. While the nonpartisan think tank says the ownership rates for every other racial demographic will decline over the next two decades, seven in ten of ALL future buyers will be of Hispanic origin. Age and population growth are key factors in that assessment, but Acosta also notes that Latinos are willing to migrate almost anywhere and everywhere jobs and affordable housing exists. “There’s no question the passion is there,” he says. “They didn’t come here to be renters.” According to the latest State of Hispanic Ownership Report from NAHREP, the rate of ownership among Latinos was not quite 49 percent last year. That’s not as high as it was in 2006 and 2007, the “go-go” years running up to the Great Recession when the rate topped out at nearly 50 percent.
But the number of Hispanic home owner households reached 8.88 million, the highest it’s been in the 11 years the group’s report has been produced. That’s an increase of 725,000 owner households, the biggest single-year jump since 2000. In comparison, the next largest increase was 414,000 in 2002. Moving forward, the Urban Institute says, age will drive the projected increase in Latino ownership. Hispanic households are much younger than their Black and White counterparts, with a higher proportion in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Those, of course, are the prime years for buying houses, and together represent the single “biggest catalyst” for Latinos, says Noerena Limon, NAHREP’s executive vice president for public policy and industry relations. That the median age of Latinos is 29.8 years – 14 years younger than any other ethnic group – means the desire to own a home “is going to last way into the future,” says Limon. “They are the future of the housing market.”
Source: National Mortgage Professional
