The Changing Face of Homeownership

Look around, and you’ll see that the makeup of the American population is changing. Growing numbers of both immigrants and citizens of Latin American, Asian American, and African American descent are creating an increasingly diverse population in the United States.

Consider these facts:

· During the 1990s, the foreign-born population in the United States grew by 11.3 million. The nation’s foreign-born population numbered 34.2 million in 2004, accounting for 12 percent of the total U.S. population, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

· Continued immigration and growth of minority groups will lead to even more dramatic shifts in the U.S. population. The non-Hispanic white population, which makes up more than two-thirds of the population today, will decline to 50.5 percent of the population by 2050, projects the U.S. Census Bureau.

· At the same time, several minority groups are expected to double or triple in size. The Hispanic population will jump from 35.6 million to 102.6 million, or from 12.6 percent to 24.4 percent of the population. The number of Asian Americans also will triple, growing from 10.7 million to 33.4 million, or from 3.8 percent to 8 percent of the population. The number of African Americans will grow from 35.8 million to 61.4 million, or from 12.7 percent to 14.6 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

· During the 1990s, minorities accounted for more than half the increase in the numbers of homeowners in 10 states, including California, New York, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Illinois, according to the Fannie Mae Foundation. Nationally, minorities accounted for 40 percent of the net increase in homeowners during the same period.

· Minorities currently make up nearly a quarter of first-time homebuyers, according to The 2004 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.

· Minorities will make up larger and larger shares of each successive generation. In absolute terms, minority household growth will outpace white household growth by 2-to-1, according to “The State of the Nation’s Housing 2005,” a report by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

What do all these numbers mean for real estate professionals?

Your customer base is changing. Americans buying homes, especially first-time homebuyers, in the next 10 to 20 years will increasingly be ethnically and culturally diverse. Although major metropolitan areas are the most immediately affected, these changing demographic trends will permeate every geographic corner of the real estate industry in the next 50 years.

Are you ready to face the challenges of working in an increasingly multicultural marketplace?

“Given the size of these markets, it’s a business imperative to be in them,” says Nicolas Retsinas, director of the JCHS in Cambridge, Mass.

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