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MarketWatch
People of color made significant gains in homeownership over the last several years, with the Hispanic homeownership rate hitting an all-time high, according to a new report by the National Association of Realtors®.
The NAR on Tuesday released its annual Snapshot of Race and Home Buying in America, which detailed homeownership trends within each racial and ethnic group as well as obstacles to buying a home. It found that the homeownership rate among all racial and ethnic groups rose from 63.9% to 65.2% between 2012 and 2022, with some groups making even greater progress toward homeownership.
Though White Americans still had the highest homeownership rate in 2022, at 72.3%, that marked only a small increase from 69.2% in 2012, compared with the headway made by Asian and Hispanic homeowners. The Asian homeownership rate over those 10 years, for example, rose from 57.2% to 63.3%.
Buying and owning a home is still part of the American dream for some people — and, more importantly, it is a form of forced-savings plan that could also have ramifications for future generations, NAR’s deputy chief economist, Jessica Lautz, told MarketWatch.
"For homeowners, this is their biggest nest egg. They likely will see wealth gains through their biggest asset," she said. "This allows them to perhaps pass homeownership to future generations, to their children. But also, this is their retirement savings. This is the ability to one day live without a mortgage in their home."