Mi Casa es… del Banco?
The ever-reliable Pew Hispanic Center released a report a few weeks ago about the state of minority and immigrant home ownership in the United States. The report states that starting in 1995 the booms and busts of the housing market have reduced the gap in home ownership between whites and different minority groups. Though reduced, the gap persists, as the report states, “As of 2008, 74.9% of whites owned homes, compared with 59.1% of Asians, 48.9% of Hispanics and 47.5% of blacks.”
Also noteworthy is that African Americans and Latinos are more likely than whites to have the now infamous subprime mortgage loans. Much more likely… “In 2007, 27.6% of home purchase loans to Hispanics and 33.5% to blacks were higher-priced [subprime] loans, compared with just 10.5% of home purchase loans to whites that year.”
Here is something else from the report that seems counterintuitive to what we hear every day on the news… “Among other things, the typical immigrant in 2008 had spent more years in the U.S. and was more likely to be a U.S. citizen than was the typical immigrant in 1995.”
Unofficially representing El Centro as Tax Guy, I had a gentleman ask me if he was eligible for the homebuyer’s stimulus, since he is married to an American but isn’t himself a resident. I had to farm that out to actual tax people and today they let me know he is eligible if here at least 183 days, a duration that qualifies him as a resident alien. So I think they’ll buy that house.
26 May 2009 at 11:56 am