Homeownership and the Racial Wealth Divide

Bill Emmons

Written by Bill Emmons for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Housing Market Perspectives explores how HOE accounted for almost half of Black and Latino's families wealth: 

Homeowners‘ equity (HOE)—the market value of residential real estate minus the value of homesecured debt—has long been the single largest component of wealth for black and Latino families.2 On average during the past quartercentury, HOE accounted for nearly half of black and Latino families‘ wealth, compared with roughly a third for Asian or other families and about a quarter for white families (Figure 1).3 During peaks in 1989 and around the financial crisis starting in 2007, HOE accounted for more than half of the wealth of the average black and Latino family

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