Monday, December 13, 2010

Update on Minnesota's Homeownership Gap

This post is a guest post by Dr. Kim Skobba, a research and communications consultant that works with the Minnesota Home Ownership Center on Affordable Housing issues and housing policy.  Dr. Skobba publishes her own blog at http://housing-sense.blogspot.com/

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Update on Minnesota's Homeownership Gap

At 73.7%, Minnesota maintains the highest overall homeownership rate in the nation. When it comes to the rate of homeowners of color, Minnesota does not fare as well. The rate of homeownership among emerging markets is 43.3% - representing the 5th largest gap in homeownership rates in the nation.

[Last] week at the EMHI Summit, Michael Grover (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis) and John Patterson (Minnesota Housing) provided a summary of their research on trends in emerging market homeownership. Their analysis of American Community Survey and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data identifies some apparent trends and offers a few unexpected findings.
  • The rate of emerging market homeownership declined for the first time since 2000. The rate of homeownership among emerging markets held relatively steady (at about 46.5%) during 2006-2008, which was surprising given the foreclosure crisis and what is known about its affect on minority homeowners. In 2009, the emerging market homeownership rate declined to 43.3%.
  • Some sub-groups of African Americans experienced particularly significant declines in their rates of homeownership. Those in the 45 to 54 age group saw a decline from 46% to 31% and those with a family income between $40,000 - $60,000 experienced a decline from a rate of 57% to 32%. Grover stated that more analysis is needed to make sense of these changes.
  • Minnesota Housing's affordable loan and entry cost assistance programs are helping emerging markets buyers. In 2009, nearly one-third of Minnesota Housing's loan originations were to emerging market buyers, compared to 10.9% in the overall market.
  • Subprime lending among emerging markets is on the decline. The rates of subprime lending (purchase and refinance) dropped from a high of over 40% in 2006 to well below 10% in 2009. Not much of a surprise but good news nonetheless.
The Emerging Markets Homeownership Initiative (EMHI) Summit is an annual event hosted by the Minnesota Home Ownership Center. This year's summit provided the opportunity to learn about the status of emerging market homeownership and some of the current issues facing emerging market homebuyers. Materials from this year's EMHI Summit (including the Grover and Patterson presentation) are available on the Center's EMHI webpage.
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This post was originally published on Dr. Skobba's blog: here.
Reposted with permission.

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