Housing
Latino Incomes Are Rising, So Why Are Their Homeownership Rates Dropping?
One big reason: Conventional credit-scoring methods work against them.
As more Hispanic and Latino people decide to make America home, they’ve been less able to actually buy a home in recent years.
The homeownership rate for Hispanic Americans was 45.4 percent in 2014—the lowest it’s been since 2000, and the first time it’s dropped below 46 percent in the same time period. This rate has steadily decreased every year since 2007, when it peaked at 49.7 percent, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP). This despite the fact that incomes for Hispanics are rising — they are the only major racial or ethnic group whose poverty rate declined significantly last year, according to Pew Research Center.