Black Homeownership Numbers Stay Steady Decades After Fair Housing Act Passed

The black homeownership rate has reportedly not increased as expected after the Fair Housing Act was signed into law in 1968. In fact, the percentage of blacks who own homes has stayed about the same since 1970 when it was 42 percent. According to U.S. Census figures, the figure stood at 41 percent in 2017.

The 1968 Fair Housing Act made it illegal to discriminate against anyone based on race, color, religion or national origin.

For most of the time between 1950 and 1970, discrimination was legal in the United States, yet the number of blacks who owned homes increased from 35 percent in 1950 to 42 percent in 1970.

Despite the Fair Housing Act opening more opportunities for homeowners of all colors and ethnicity, a recent report by Forbes notes that the number of black people who own homes has remained nearly the same.

Discrimination appears to have been replaced by other adverse factors that hinder homeownership numbers among the black population, according to another report by Forbes. Among those factors include:

• A bigger demand for houses has meant a shorter supply. Some homes are on the market for less than 24 hours before they are sold and receive full-price offers.
• Subsidized housing helps more people become homeowners, but home prices can increase to the point where houses are not as affordable.
• FHA mortgages encourage people to become house-poor. When major items need repairing or replacing, a house-poor homeowner might hold off doing so for as long as possible. It doesn’t take long for a neighborhood to go downhill if several homeowners on the block are struggling to make their house payment each month.

Goals for Black Homeownership

The National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) is an African American-led organization that was founded in the 1940s to encourage black homeownership. The NAREB has a goal to establish 2 million new black homeowners within the next five years.

Ron Cooper, president of NAREB, says in a statement on the organization’s website that blacks were a target of predatory home lending practices 10 years ago. Many refinanced to the point they lost equity in their homes and were foreclosed upon when the housing market crashed. After that experience, many blacks have been afraid to apply for home loans again, Cooper says.

Studies also show that blacks in the U.S. have lower credit scores, lower incomes and lower education levels when compared to whites. The NAREB says that lower homeownership percentages add to the social problems because blacks are denied the important wealth-building tool of homeownership.

Pew Research shared results of a study that showed the wealth of white households was 13 times greater than that of black households in 2013; that was up from eight times the wealth in 2010. Pew reports the current wealth gap between blacks and whites is the highest it’s been since 1989, at which time white households had 17 times the wealth of black households.

According to Rolf Pendall, co-director of the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute, it could take a full generation of time before black homeownership rates are back up.

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This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.