[Pen-l] Baker: Census numbers on home ownership

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dean Baker reports on recent Census Bureau data:
>The release ... showed that homeownership rates are continuing to decline. The rate dropped by 0.2 percentage points to 67.5 percent in the fourth quarter. This is 1.8 percentage points below the peaks hit in the second quarter of 2004 and the first quarter of 2005. The current rate is the same as the rate for the second half of 2000.

>The homeownership rate for African Americans fell to 46.8 percent (the quarterly data by race is erratic), 2.3 percentage points below the peak hit in 2004 and 0.4 percentage points below the 2000 year-round average. The 48.6 percent homeownership rate for Hispanics is 1.5 percent percentage points below the peak in the third quarter of 2007, but still 0.5 percentage points above the 2004 rate. While African Americans clearly are worse off in terms of homeownership than before the boom took off, at the moment it appears as though Hispanics are still somewhat ahead.

>This situation will deteriorate further in the next two years as the impact of rapidly rising unemployment compounds the effect of mortgage resets and plummeting house prices. Homeownership rates are likely to fall sharply for all demographic groups. Even in an optimistic scenario, the unemployment rate will be rising well above 8.0 percent over the course of the year.<
-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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