As members of Congress propose legislation to close the racial wealth gap, the latest report of black homeownership in America has just been released.The number of Black Americans purchasing homes is on the rebound, but there has been little progress as the Black homeownership rate remains low at 44% and has been largely stagnant since the 1970s, lagging behind previous generations.
And while the homeownership lag is true for Millennials as a whole and has been documented in our previous reports, the homeownership rate for white Americans is nearly 30 percentage points higher than for Black Americans, a gap that remains close to an all-time high.
Here are some key insights from the report:
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As of the most recent Census data, the homeownership rate for Black households stands at 44%, up from 41% as recently as 2016, but still slightly below the 1980 rate of 45%.
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Just 17% of Black Millennial-owned homes at age 30, a rate that is roughly 10 percentage points lower than earlier generations of Black Americans when they were the same age.
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As of 2021, the Black homeownership rate in the Charlotte metro stands at 46%, up from 42% in 2016.
You can check out the full report here.