The obstacles to buying your first home

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Every year, The New York Times Real Estate section covers the topic of buying a first home, with all the disappointments and joys that come with finally owning a home.

For many Americans, a home is the largest investment they will ever make. Their home is their greatest asset and paves the way to financial stability and even generational wealth. But homeownership rates lag behind Black, Latino, Asian American and Native American populations, compared to the nation’s white population.

As we developed stories about buying your childhood home and buying while single, we were aware of the homeownership imbalance in the United States. In the past, the Real Estate Desk has conducted research into racial bias in home appraisals and the discrimination black real estate agents face.

For these latest stories, Colette Coleman, a freelance reporter contributing to The New York Times, discovered an optimistic trend in Latino homeownership. Speaking to the Urban Institute, a think tank, she found that the homeownership rate among Hispanics increased more than any other demographic group between 2019 and 2022. The think tank estimated that a vast majority of net new homeowners in the next 20 years will be Spanish.

Looking at the current market, Colette delved into a trend among Latin American households: borrowing jointly to pay off a mortgage and pooling resources to pay the mortgage. She spoke with Danae Vega, who bought a house in San Bernardino County, California, with her sister Ashley a year ago. Their entire family, including another sister, three brothers and their parents, helped.

In Las Vegas, Alexandra García and her father, Rosalio, bought a house together for their family, qualifying for a loan after adding her father, who is an auto mechanic, to her credit cards so he could have an established credit history. they said to Colette.

Other first-time homeowners are getting creative in other ways. Heather Senison, also a freelance reporter, traveled to the Saint Regis Mohawk Reservation in upstate New York to talk with Randa Martin, who had purchased land on the reservation from her aunt and secured a mortgage through a U.S. Department of State program of Agriculture.

Randa’s story was bittersweet. She had applied with her longtime partner and father of her children, but he died suddenly of a heart attack as the loan was being processed. Grieving, Randa worried that her loan application would be rejected because it was now based on one income. But a local housing authority loan officer saw notice of her partner’s death and resubmitted the application on Ms Martin’s behalf. The loan was $198,000, and Ms. Martin and her four children have plenty of space, a welcome change from having lived in apartments.

Heather found that such loans on reservations are rare: There were only 17 USDA loans borrowed by homebuyers on reservations nationwide, down from six in 2019, a Department of Agriculture spokesperson told her.

The two stories showed the different barriers to homeownership and the ways people could overcome them.

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