The homeownership rate for “all minorities” increased to 47.4 percent in the second quarter of 2018, up 0.6 percent from the same time last year (46.8 percent). This increase helped boost the overall homeownership rate to 64.3 percent, also up 0.6 percent from the second quarter of 2017 (Figure 1). A recent NAHB blog covers the overall homeownership rate in more depth.

Although there have been recent gains in the “all minority” homeownership rate, growth is uneven among its subgroups. Year-over-year, the homeownership rate for “other” minorities (includes American Indian or Alaskan Native; Asian or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and other races) climbed 2.1 percentage points to 58.5, the Hispanic homeownership rate rose by 1.1 percentage points to 46.6 percent, and the white (non-Hispanic) rate grew 0.7 percentage points to 72.9 percent. Meanwhile, the black (non-Hispanic) homeownership rate fell by 0.6 percentage points to 42.6 in the second quarter of 2018 (Figure 2).

In addition to this quarter’s rates, Figure 2 shows the expanded trends for racial and ethnic groups. Between 2015 and 2016, the homeownership rates for all groups reached their troughs after steady declines in the preceding ten years. Since then, “other” households have had the strongest gains while black households have had the weakest. Compared to the other groups, black households are generally younger, have lower marriage rates, and lower household income — all factors shown to negatively affect homeownership rates.

It is important to note that going forward, minority households will be an important factor driving the overall homeownership rate, with a greater share of these households reaching the age of the typical first-time homebuyer, compared to white (non-Hispanic) households (Figure 3).

Tags: homeownership, minority homeownership