HOME - Insights
Insights
Research on Latinos and homeownership to advance evidence-based policy and market solutions.
The Home Ownership Means Equity (HOME) initiative is dedicated to transforming the economic trajectory of Latinos by advancing systemic change to enable the creation of 4 million new Hispanic homeowners by 2030. In pursuit of this goal, the initiative emphasizes informed decision-making and assessment, leveraging research and data analytics to inform policies and practices that will increase homeownership rates within the Latino community. The Urban Institute, an independent nonprofit research organization, is a partner with the HOME initiative providing research and data analytics to inform and assess its goals.
National and State Level Dashboards for Hispanic Homeownership
A Research Agenda to Advance Latino Homeownership
A Research Agenda that poses the critical questions to answer to expand and sustain Latino homeownership in the United States.
With the Latino homeownership rate reaching its highest point since 2009, the report highlights the growing significance of Latinos in the housing market. The research agenda, developed in a collaboration between the Urban Institute and UnidosUS as part of the Home Ownership Means Equity (HOME) initiative, focuses on understanding the historical context, unique structural challenges, macro-level conditions, housing supply dynamics, and the impact of financial technology on Latino homeownership.
Calls for Papers on Advancing Latino Homeownership
UnidosUS recently partnered with the Urban Institute on a Call for Papers that seeks to close knowledge gaps on the challenges and opportunities for advancing Latino homeownership. Together and through our published research agenda on Latino homeownership, we engaged with researchers, particularly those with relevant lived experience, to conduct research on topics that have been identified as knowledge gaps in our understanding of the barriers and opportunities to advance Latino homeownership.
We are pleased to announce the seven submissions we selected from the 2024 Call for Research Papers on Latino Homeownership. We congratulate the selected researchers listed below, whose papers will be showcased at a research symposium on Latino homeownership to be held in partnership with the Urban Institute at their Washington, DC headquarters on January 30, 2025.
Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies
- Their research will explore what factors may impact Latino homeowners’ ability to maintain equity and pass it to the next generation.
Texas A&M University
- Lead Researcher: Jonathan Halket, PhD
- This research will investigate the extent to which differences in Latino households’ access to credit are evident in the homeownership rates, house prices, and rents within Hispanic-majority neighborhoods.
George Washington University
- Lead Researcher: Paul Carrillo, PhD, Professor of Economics
- Will analyze the determinants of the spatial distribution of the white-Hispanic homeownership rate gap, exploring the roles of endowments and location characteristics like amenities and prices.
Office Of
- This research will examine how various housing supply policies at both city and state levels contribute to heightened rates of Latino homeownership in three predominantly Latino cities: South Gate, California; Hialeah, Florida; and Laredo, Texas.
Puerto Rican Cultural Center
- Lead Researcher: Ivis Garcia, PhD
- This research will delve into identifying housing interventions that would be especially impactful within the framework of the new initiative to designate Puerto Rico Town as a Community Sustainable Development District. This investigation is essential as the district has a disproportionate concentration of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos, coupled with high home prices and limited housing supply.
Housing Assistance Council
- This research will investigate the dynamics and potential avenues for enhancing homeownership opportunities for Hispanic households within Colonias Investment Areas.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Lead Researcher: Ashley C. Hernandez, CRP Founders Fellow and Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning
- This research will analyze how East Los Angeles Community Corporation (ELACC) and its organizational allies characterize and map the challenges they face in promoting Latino homeownership.
ITIN Mortgages
ITIN Mortgages: Barriers and Opportunities to Advance Latino Homeownership
Urban Institute research found that Latino households were poised to drive nearly 70 percent of net homeownership gains through 2040. These projected gains were attributed both to the rapid growth of the Latino population in the US and the wide homeownership rate gap between Latino households and white households.
51.1 percent of Latino households are homeowners, compared with nearly three-quarters of white households. But for the projected growth in Latino homeownership to be achieved, the mortgage market needs to be adapted to lower systemic barriers. One such barrier is a lack of mainstream mortgage financing for Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) holder households, a majority of whom are Latino.
Barriers to Accessing Mortgage Credit
This research examines barriers Latino homebuyers face in the mortgage underwriting process and explores what could be done to enhance homeownership opportunities for Latino homebuyers. Despite noticeable homeownership gains among Latino households in recent years, we find that Latino homebuyers still face multiple barriers to accessing homeownership. We look at the debt-to-income ratio, credit history, and down payments to understand why Latino homeownership remains lower than white homeownership, even after controlling for age and income. For each of the three areas, we discuss what can be done to mitigate the barriers for Latino homebuyers.
LHRAN Members Spotlight
The Latino Homeownership Research Advisory Network (LHRAN) is comprised of cross-discipline Latino academics and researchers.
José Loya
Assistant Professor in Urban Planning at the University of California Los Angeles
Yaidi Cancel Martinez
Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban planning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Rocio Sanchez Moyano
Senior Researcher in Community Development at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
David Garcia
Policy Director, Up For Growth
Roberto Quercia
Harris Distinguished Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Zaire Dinzey-Flores
Associate Professor in the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies and the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University
Atticus Jaramillo
Assistant Professor in the College of Architecture of Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona
Raul Santiago-Bartolomei
Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Planning of the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras
Paul E. Carrillo
Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University
Noerena Limón
CEO of Mariposa Strategies LLC