The Housing Gap: It’s Still a Problem What REALTORS® Can Do to Better Serve All Coloradans For decades, the real estate industry has been looking at what factors are contributing to the “housing gap,” a term often used to describe segments of the population who are not keeping up with homeownership rates of white families. There are various reasons: everything from access to credit, education, socioeconomic and social considerations, barriers due to race or ethnicity, discrimination, lending issues, and more.
Statistically, the United States overall has been seeing a gap of 30 percentage points between white and black populations, with Hispanic and Asian populations falling behind white homeownership rates by 25 percent and 14 percent, respectively. Incredibly, in 1960, before the Civil Rights movement and Fair Housing laws, there was a 27-point gap between Black homeownership (38%) and White homeownership (65%). Why has this housing gap actually widened since then, and what can REALTORS® do to help? Over the years, real estate organizations such as the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB), the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP), the Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA), and the National Association of Gay & Lesbian
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Real Estate Professionals (NAGLREP) have done studies to learn about the obstacles that Black, Hispanic, Asian, LGBTQ, and indigent communities face in attaining homeownership. One of the main recommendations that comes out of this research is educating families and individuals on the process and benefits of buying a home. Many first-generation homebuyers do not have the knowledge of financial literacy passed down to them. In many cases, their parents and grandparents had never owned a home. Some populations report overall nervousness and fear about the credit/mortgage process and believe it will be difficult to get a mortgage. REALTORS® can also make a difference by collaborating with their local housing officials, attending public meetings, volunteering for spots on planning commissions, and being at the table anywhere a
