Uncategorized

Jun18

Coronavirus Could Be New Housing Crisis for Communities of Color

Alex De La Campa’s parents still haven’t recovered from a 2008 foreclosure and he fears the coronavirus-induced economic collapse will leave them in an even deeper hole. Prior to the last recession, they owned their home in Concord, Calif., a Bay Area city of 120,000 people where his father, a Mexican immigrant, was a police Continue Reading

Dec17

Conference to address decline of black homeownership

By Buck Wargo A national organization of real estate professionals is coming to Las Vegas in February to “declare war on the decline of black homeownership” and given the rates in Southern Nevada, it will be the perfect locale to spread that message. The midwinter conference of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, the Continue Reading

Dec16

Inspired by Nipsey Hussle, they’re trying to ‘buy back’ South LA

Residents are meeting up each month to learn about buying property as a way to build generational wealth By Jessica Flores | @jesssmflores For Daniel Carter, the strip mall where Nipsey Hussle was killed in March, is one of the most important places in South LA. The late rapper was a South LA champion who Continue Reading

Dec11

Although Jobs Report Shows Robust Job Market, African Americans Still Face Discrimination

By Derek T.Dingle     The prognosticators were wrong. Forecasts from ADP and Moody’s Analytics early last week revealed that the job market was slowing due to a private payrolls report showing a gain of just 67,000 jobs for the month of November. According to Friday’s report from the US Department of Labor, however, the Continue Reading

Dec04

FHA’s strong financial showing points the way on policy

By Anthony Kellum Last month HUD published its annual FHA Actuarial Report. The report shows extremely strong financial performance — with reserves against losses of $62 billion and an economic net worth-capital ratio of 4.84% for the overall portfolio. The FHA’s capital ratio is the highest since 2007 and almost two and a half times the FHA’s Continue Reading

Dec03

8 Reasons to Buy a Home

By Elizabeth Weintraub If you’re like most first-time home buyers, you’ve probably listened to friends’, family’s and coworkers’ advice, many of whom are encouraging you to buy a home. However, you may still wonder if buying a home is the right thing to do. Relax. Having reservations is normal. The more you know about why you should buy Continue Reading

Nov27

What Happens When Black People Search for Suburban Homes

By Luis Ferré-Sadurní An undercover investigation on Long Island found that real estate agents treated people of color unequally 40 percent of the time. One Long Island real estate agent told a black man that houses in a predominantly white neighborhood were too expensive for his budget. But the same agent showed houses in the same Continue Reading

Nov27

Why Owning a Home Is Important

By Mike Grundon Owning a home is more than just hype; it’s the gateway to long-term and short-term financial success. Long-term, you’ll build an equity nest egg and short-term, you’ll be able to enjoy potential tax breaks and pay yourself instead of a landlord. A home purchase is an investment you’ll be glad you made! Continue Reading

Nov25

Against Black Homeownership

By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor The real estate market is so structured by race that black families will never come out ahead. In January 1973, George Romney, Nixon’s enigmatic Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, administered an open-ended moratorium on its 1968 initiatives to open up single-family homeownership to low-income borrowers by providing government-backed mortgages. The experiment Continue Reading

Nov19

Long Island Divided: An Investigation by Newsday

After a 3-year investigation with over 90 real estate agents tested, over 200 hours of meetings recorded, and over 5700 house listings analyzed, the Newsday investigation uncovered widespread evidence of unequal treatment by real estate agents on long island: 19% of the time against Asians, 39% against Hispanics and 49% against Blacks.   In one of Continue Reading

Nov14

FHA capital level is the highest since 2007

By Kathleen Howley Montgomery on cutting life-of-loan policy: “We’re not there yet” The Federal Housing Administration’s flagship Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund is in the best condition since before the financial crisis, with capital levels at the highest level since 2007. The FHA’s annual report to Congress showed a capital ratio of 4.84%, up from 2.76% Continue Reading

Nov05

Despite a Strong Economy, Black Homeownership Continues to Struggle

By: Marie Cyprien A new report called State of Housing in Black America released by the National Association of Real Estate Brokers shows that not only is the rate of black homeownership decreasing, but the gap between black and white households today is much wider than in 1968.     In fact, recent U.S. Census Continue Reading

Nov05

Kansas residents are looking back to move community forward

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Bernard Crawford grew up on Quindaro during the 1970s. He remembers thriving businesses: bakeries, grocery stores and theaters. He left for school but has come back to be what he calls a “light” on Quindaro, to help it be a safe and welcoming place. A sign on the wall says, Continue Reading

Oct31

For many black millennials, student debt is biggest hurdle in homeownership

By Troy McMullen Not long after they were married in 2017, Rick and Astardii Hopkins started shopping for a home. But when the Birmingham, Ala., couple began exploring home loans, they quickly realized their college loan debt limited their options. Both attended local colleges, and like many African American millennials across the country who took Continue Reading

Sep24

Conditions are good so why is Black homeownership falling?

By Steve Randall The US economy is robust and the labor market is strong, so why is the Black homeownership rate still falling? That’s a question addressed in a new report from the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, revealed last week at its Issues Forum held during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation – Annual Continue Reading

Apr10

How black residents of Long Beach fought racist real estate policies and influenced a nation

By: Brian Addison “I can sympathize and empathize with the frustration, dismay and disappointment experienced in unsuccessful attempts to acquire housing in the bigoted ‘International City’ of Long Beach. I have not been able to rent an apartment after searching for almost three months—indubitably due to the fact that I am a Negro.” This is Continue Reading

Apr02

African American homeownership rates on the decline in southeast Michigan as Fair Housing Month looms

By: Gina Joseph   Willie Davis is 33-years-old. He’s African American. And Davis, a Troy real estate agent, is looking to purchase a home in Clinton Township. In looking at homeownership rates among black households across southeast Michigan, he’s an exception, as are some of his clients, including Benjamin and Seane Pettis, who recently purchased Continue Reading

Mar21

In A Majority-Black City, Mortgages Go Disproportionately To Whites

Mayor Mike Duggan was happy enough about the city’s rising homeownership rate that he mentioned it in his State of the City address. Today, John Gallagher at the Free Press offers a sobering additional detail: White people make up just 10 percent of Detroit’s population but got nearly half of the home mortgage loans made Continue Reading

Mar12

It turns out Americans weren’t ready to become a nation of renters. Homeownership is back in

By Andrew Van Dam A funny thing happened on the way to the United States becoming a nation of renters: people started buying homes again. New data indicate that in 2016, in defiance of myriad prognostications, the decade-long decline in the homeownership rate abruptly reversed. Once-rapid growth in renter households stalled, and the long-stagnant number Continue Reading

Mar01

The ‘heartbreaking’ decrease in black homeownership

By Troy McMullen Racism and rollbacks in government policies are taking their toll. Vanessa Bulnes and her husband, Richard, bought their house on 104th Avenue in East Oakland, Calif., in 1992. The modest two-bedroom property is where they lived for 20 years, raising three children, and where Vanessa made a living running an in-home day-care center. Continue Reading