Thursday, March 28, 2024

Latino Millennial Home Ownership Key to Housing Market Growth

According to “The State of the Nation’s Housing” study by the Joint Center for Housing at Harvard University, minorities are expected to drive three-quarters of the gains in the U.S. households in the decade of 2015-2025, and Hispanics will account for one third of those gains. The future of home ownership in America will be heavily shaped by how Latino millennials navigate the expensive and tight housing and rental markets throughout the country.

“The fact is the majority of Latinos want to be home owners and will make up half of all new home buyers in the next 20 years. They have a central place in the housing market and finance system,” said Scott Astrada, director of federal advocacy at the Center for Responsible Lending.

Affordable housing and home ownership is not a reality for many Latino millennials, making this a priority for one of the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organizations. The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) annual convention this week will convene a panel discussion on “Where Are Millennials to Supposed to Live? Affordability in Housing and Homeownership.”

“We’ve been talking about buying a house, but right now it is beyond our possibilities in the L.A. market,” said Michael Alfaro, a marketing freelancer. “We make more than the average American, but there is no way, even with that, we could afford a house. Getting into that kind of debt for us is scary.”

But among Hispanics of all ages, the rate of home ownership is growing, even though it has dropped or remained flat in other racial and ethnic groups, according to a report on the 2016 housing market by the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. Equity in a home makes up the biggest asset for a majority of Latinos and provides the economic security needed for many Hispanics to be successful.

NBC News Latino