The Census Bureau recently published data on homeownership rates from its Housing Vacancies and Homeownership Survey (CPS/HVS). A previous NAHB blog shows that the overall homeownership rate increased to 64.8% in the fourth quarter of 2018, up 0.6 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2017 (64.2%) (Figure 1).  Figure 1 also shows that the overall homeownership rate bottomed out at 62.9% in 2016, but has been on a consistent path upwards since then.

The all minority homeownership rate, which includes black/African-American, Hispanic, and Other households (Asian, Native American, Pacific Islander/Hawaiian), reached 47.7% in the fourth quarter, up 0.3 percentage points from the same time last year (Figure 2).

Figure 3 provides a further breakdown of the all minority homeownership rates, along with the homeownership rate for white (non-Hispanic) households.  In the fourth quarter of 2018 (compared to the fourth quarter of 2017) the black homeownership rate grew by 0.6 percent to 43.6%, while the Hispanic homeownership rate grew 0.3 percentage points to 46.9%. Meanwhile, the Other homeownership rate was flat at 58.1 percent during the same period. In comparison, the white (non-Hispanic) homeownership grew by 0.9 percent to 73.6% in the fourth quarter, more than the all minority homeownership rate.

Since 2016, when the overall homeownership rate reached a trough point, the “Other” category experienced the greatest gain in homeownership among the three minority groups, with a 3.9 percentage point increase (fourth quarter of 2016 to fourth quarter of 2018). Meanwhile, the Hispanic homeownership rate grew by 1.8 percentage points during that time frame and the black homeownership rate grew the slowest among the minority groups (1.3 percentage points).

Tags: homeownership, minority homeownership