Leaving Gateway Metropolitan Areas: Immigrants and the Housing Market

Immigration has long been a force that shapes the housing and labor markets in gateway
metropolitan areas. Recently, the impact of immigration is being felt in an increasingly
large number of metropolitan areas. This study focuses on the housing outcomes of
households who currently live in the fourteen largest emerging gateways, with special
focus give to those households that have left the six established gateway metropolitan
areas. The findings suggest that those that households that move from most gateway
metropolitan areas have lower homeownership rates than do households that move from
within the metropolitan area. At the same time, there is little evidence that immigrants do
no worse than native-born households that migrate within the United States. The study
also demonstrates that immigrant households that live in crowded conditions or have
multiple workers in the household have better homeownership rates than similar native
born households, and that younger immigrant household are more successful in attaining
homeownership than are similar native-born households.