Blacks struggle to build wealth according to National Association of Real Estate Brokers

Home ownership has been the primary means of wealth building for the majority of Americans. Now its taking a beating.  All major groups in the US, except the wealthy, have lost homes since the peak ownership year of 2004. The trend accelerated during the last recession with the mortgage loan and foreclosure crisis.

Black home ownership continued to fall as the sub-prime/foreclosure crisis took its toll. Black home ownership has decreased to 41.3% in 2016 down from a high of 49.4% in 2003. That's a 16% decrease. Whites has a corresponding drop of 8%. The percentage is the second lowest ever measured for Blacks since the Census Bureau started keeping track in 1994. The lowest point was 41.2% in 1995.  The sharp decline reflects the disaster in sub prime loans and the crisis in foreclosures.

There are also been a huge shift from conventional mortgages to Federal Housing Administration(FHA) backed mortgages for Black mortgages.

Here is the press release from the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) that discusses the issue in detail.

In addition the NAREB funds an annual study of Black home ownership called the State of Housing in Black America (SHIBA). The report is a detailed examination of trends in Black housing. The report gives a significant amount of detail regarding the home loan process, historic discrimination in the real estate market and recommendations for fixing the loan process.

Highlights in the report include:

* Spotlighting a virtual halt in mortgage lending to Blacks since the recession in 2007.

* The huge drop in Black mortgage applications and loan origination after the recession. The number of loan applications dropped from about 750,000 in 2005 to 120,000 in 2010 and the number of loans dropped from 400,000 to 75,000 during the same period.

* Blacks receive fewer conventional loans as compare to White Americans (30% Black vs. 44% White) and are more reliant FHA backed loans. (46% vs. 19%).

Here is a chart of US home ownership rates by race.  You can see the 17% drop in ownership by Blacks versus 8% drop by Whites. In the 3rd quarter of 2016 all rates posted improvements expect Black owner ship.