| Summary: | The homeownership rate in the US reached an all-time high of 69.2 percent by 2006, attributed to factors like favorable mortgage lending practice, economic boom, and incentive policies. The recent subprime mortgage crisis and economic recession, however, widened the gap in homeownership between racial minorities and whites. A sharp drop in housing price also posed a threat to the amount of equity one could accumulate. In this paper, we examined how the changing economy and both structural and individual-level factors affected the racial disparities in homeownership and home equity, using the 2005 and 2009 American Housing Survey national data. The major finding was that the economic recession affected Blacks the most, followed by Hispanics. Asians, though showing a decline in their home equity, were able to maintain their advantages in the housing market.
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