September 17, 2015
Thursday’s Advocacy & Think Tank Round-up
- Corelogic’s Second Quarter U.S. Equity Report indicated that over three-quarters-of -a-million properties regained equity, while 4.4 million remain in negative equity over the same period. Aggregate negative equity fell $28 billion from $338 billion to $309 billion. According to Corelogic this reduction is caused both by foreclosure completions and home price appreciation.
- According to a study by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) new home construction is trailing job growth in major metro areas. NAR sees this as the primary reason for the affordability crisis now gripping the nation in many of the same areas.
- The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) against certain real estate agencies and individual realtors who are alleged to have treated black and latino buyers in Jackson Mississippi in drastically different ways than they treated equally qualified white buyers. According to the NFHA complaint white buyers were shown a wider variety of homes while black and latino purchasers were largely steer into majority minority neighborhoods.
- The NHFA, in a related vein, also released a study entitled Where You Live Matters – 2015 Fair Housing Trends Report which draws a stark parallel between the historic lack of investment in communities of color and the racial disparities in educational, social, and economic outcomes that have resulted.
- NYU’s Furman Center has released a Brief entitled Black and Latino Segregation and Socioeconomic Outcomes which finds that the burgeoning Latino population in the U.S. is largely “inheriting the segregated urban structures experienced by African Americans.” This segregation seems to lead to reduced socioeconomic prospects when compared with whites, including lower earnings, more violent crime, less access to credit and lower homeownership rates.
