The preventable foreclosure crisis

Homeownership and Neighborhood Satisfaction among Low- and Moderate-Income Households

“…LMI homeowners are more likely to buy in distressed neighborhoods (Harkness & Newman, 2002;Parkes, Kearns, & Atkinson, 2002); as a result, they may receive fewer economic returns compared to higher-income households (Reid, 2005;Van Zandt & Rohe, 2006). Moreover, the unfolding of the recent housing market crisis has revealed that the homeownership experience may vary greatly for homeowners according to income, resources, and especially mortgage terms (Quercia & Ratcliffe, 2008). In this article, we examine the impact of homeownership among LMI households on one social outcome-neighborhood satisfaction.…”

Closing the Wealth Gap: A Review of Racial and Ethnic Inequalities in Homeownership

“…Homeownership lies at the heart of the American dream. Even after very large losses in wealth due to the housing market crash, home equity remains the largest source of wealth for American families (Quercia and Ratcliffe, ). Sustained homeownership plays a pivotal role in bringing families into the middle class and enabling them to pass that class status on to their children.…”

“…It has also created other programs and dedicated units such as the Federal Housing Administration which insure sindividual mortgages and the Home Affordable Modification Program which modifies mortgages to make them more affordable to qualified homeowners (Skocpol, , Rubin, , Santiago et al, , Stone, , Charles and Hurst, ). The federal government, both through Republicans and Democrats, has encouraged Americans of all backgrounds to become homeowners (Shlay, , Rohe and Watson, , Santiago et al, , Quercia and Ratcliffe, ). America's social and fiscal policies regarding homeownership support several economic benefits of owning over renting including (i) lower monthly costs for comparable housing because homeowners do not pay monthly costs which go towards landlords' profit, (ii) the income tax benefits which allow for mortgage interest and property tax deductions, (iii) forced savings and wealth building created by paying down one's mortgage which builds home equity (Bratt et al, ).…”

“…Some studies have shown that in spite of these challenges, homeownership remains a wealth building strategy, even for the low income (Santiago et al, Federal Reserve ). Scholars Roberto Quercia and Janneke Ratcliffe report that “even after an estimated $13 trillion loss of household wealth between the peak of mid‐2007 and March 2009, home equity still accounted for the largest element of household wealth in the second quarter of 2008” (Quercia and Ratcliffe, ) [p. 745]. As of second quarter of 2012, home equity remains the largest element of household wealth (Federal Reserve, ).…”

“…Homeownership has historically been central to the economic well‐being of Americans (Shapiro, , Alba and Logan, , Charles and Hurst, , Di et al, , Hall and Crowder, , Hao, , Squires and Kubrin, , Turner and Luea, ). However, minorities have not had the same access to homeownership that Whites have (Alba and Logan, , Anong et al, , Quercia and Ratcliffe, , Wachter and Megbolugbe, ). In 1910, approximately 49 percent of Whites owned their homes compared with 37 percent of Hispanics and just 23 percent of Blacks (Ruggles et al, ) .…”