The minority homeownership rate rose to 48.6% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2019, up 0.8 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2018, according to new data from the Census Bureau’s Housing Vacancies and Homeownership survey. This year over year gain is higher than the gain in the overall U.S. homeownership rate (up 0.3 percentage points to 65.1%) and marks the highest minority homeownership rate since the third quarter of 2011 (48.9%).
Breaking down the minority homeownership rate shows that the Hispanic homeownership rate gained the most in the fourth quarter, with a 1.2 percentage point increase to 48.1% (from 46.9% in the fourth quarter of 2018).
The black homeownership rate posted the second largest gain of 1.0 percentage points to reach 44.6% in the fourth quarter of 2019 (from 43.6% in the fourth quarter of 2018). This is the largest quarter gain in the black homeownership rate since the first quarter of 2017.
Meanwhile, Other households (Asian, Pacific-Islander, Native American, and other race households) experienced a decline in their homeownership rate, dropping 1.0 percentage points to 57.1% (from 58.1% in the third quarter of 2019). The Other homeownership rate has now declined for four consecutive quarters (year-over-year declines), which is in contrast to strong gains seen for this group between the second quarter of 2017 and the third quarter of 2018.
