A Puerto Rican flag hangs in front of a rowhouse in the Hunting Park neighborhood of North Philadelphia.Photographer: Mark Makela for The Washington Post via Getty Images
By Sarah Rosen Wartell and Janet Murguia, Bloomberg CityLab, October 23, 2023
The housing market landscape in the US is daunting for everyone. With mortgage rates at a 22-year high and a nationwide scarcity of affordable homes, first-time buyers are struggling to break into the market, and even high earners are giving up hope. But lost in the endless coverage of the nation’s housing crisis is a deeply alarming trend: The 64 million people in America who identify as Hispanic or Latino are in danger of seeing their recent economic gains reversed if they cannot access an affordable path to homeownership.
The median Latino family only has 19 cents of wealth per every dollar a White family possesses. Homeownership is one of the primary tools to close that gap: Latino families who own homes possess 28 times more wealth than renters. If homeownership becomes unachievable the consequences will be widespread, both among Latino families — a rapidly growing segment of US society that is set to make up 70% of new homeowners by 2040 — and for the real estate sector itself. We cannot risk pitching a bedrock industry into crisis, again.
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