Bill Lurz
Recent research at the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern Californiacolor> shows persistent racial gaps in U.S. home ownership rates. However, that bad news has a good side: there's an untapped market, especially in America's cities, for new housing targeted to minorities. The research also shows these prospective buyers have not only the will to purchase homes, but the money, and they are saving it.
The research, conducted by Lusk Center director Stuart Gabriel, Ph.D., and Stuart Rosenthal, Ph.D., of Syracuse University's Center for Policy Research, analyzed housing data from a 20-year period. It shows that despite innovations in mortgage instruments, expansion of the secondary market, the lowest mortgage rates in 40 years and a host of industry and government efforts to promote minority home ownership, substantial gaps still persist among rates for non-Hispanic whites (76% in latest data from 2004) and African Americans (50%) and Hispanics (47%).