Abstract

Homeownership rates have reached unprecedented levels in the United States. According to 2005 Current Population Survey data, virtually every segment of the population has higher homeownership rates than they did a decade ago - although the gains have been largest among Hispanics. Yet, despite the rapid growth in Hispanic homeownership over the past decade, the gap between non-Hispanic White and Hispanic homeownership rates is still 26 percentage points. In light of these statistics, this article has two goals: (1) to describe the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the U.S. Hispanic population and how these characteristics relate to the Hispanic homeownership gap and (2) to identify the main barriers to Hispanic homeownership, including barriers associated with the lack of information about the homebuying process, the real estate and housing markets, and the financial and mortgage markets. To accomplish these goals, the article reviews the existing literature and incorporates key information on Hispanic households derived from the decennial census and other publicly available national data sets. This article is derived from a more detailed review of Hispanic homeownership gaps (Cortes et al., 2006), and the reader is referred to this study for greater details on the data and literature cited in this article.