Homeownership
To most people in society, it is really important to one day own their own home and become a homeowner. To many, this is how one feels the achievement and fulfillment of finally reaching that very wanted American Dream, that people always hope to reach one day. This goal achievement feels like a seal of the deal. Being a homeowner, for most, means stability and having more control of their life.
Owning a home does come with lots of benefits for the owners, their families, and even the communities. Many people feel the stress of being released because it is a true hustle to monthly pay rent. This is one of the top reasons why people would gladly buy a home, but it is also a process. However, in the end, it is worth it, especially for the minority groups that don’t often buy houses, like the Latino and Black Communities.
The Benefits of Becoming a Homeowner
Some of the benefits of buying a house are:
- Improving the quality of life.
- Not paying rent anymore.
- More stability.
- Less stress from landlords.
- More freedom.
- Being more engaged with the community.
Furthermore, according to the Mountain America Credit Union, 88% of homeowners report having a positive experience owning a home of their own. This shows that a pretty big majority of people that own houses do improve in most aspects of their life. This is a huge benefit even for children because this way, they are also in a stable home. By them being stable they do much better in school and in all of their academic achievements, therefore they are most likely to graduate from college.
This positive feedback from them doing well in school is because they don’t have to deal with all of the financial problems that come when renting an apartment. Overall a lot of positive outcomes are reflected on homeowners and their families and even for the community, due to the fact of having less stress and more freedom, unlike people who rent. For renters, most of the time is more stress and less freedom.
The Latino and Black Community Making Investments
Regarding the topic of how becoming homeowners is a great plus in someone’s life, Latino and Black Chicagoans are now buying more two-flat properties. This century the Latino and Black Communities are making a lot of investments and more and more are becoming homeowners.
This is a very big deal because this is providing more opportunities for the Latino and Black communities of becoming more wealthy. Also for these minority groups to have an opportunity for more equality in terms of being more financially stable as the generations go. As well as creating more wealth for people of color and increasing homeowners across different racial communities.
Ever since the pandemic started, everything has changed completely with it. During the hardest times of the pandemic there also started to become available new programs that helped different communities in many different ways, especially economically.
Therefore many people in these two race communities, and even the Asian community, there started to increase regarding homeowners. This increased spike started to increase and go up more in the year 2021, and this was the greatest spike ever since the Great Recession due to the financial help that people were receiving and also to the prices of the properties going down.
Savings During the Pandemic and the Results
During the process of the COVID-19 pandemic, people were also getting federal stimulus checks and rent assistance and even student loan were frozen. With all this assistance being provided lots of people were able to save and interests made it easier and cheaper to start the process of purchasing a house.
Rent just keeps going up every single year which is why it is better for these ethnic communities to buy their house because this gives the families really good positive feedback by creating wealth. These families buying their own house also creates a really good impact for them in their neighborhood community and overall, in their entire life.
These statistics show how Latinos and Black communities are the ones that in these moments are the ones that are buying the most, which is really good news because lots of people have the concept that they are the minority groups, mostly when it comes to buying houses or financially. Overall, this spike in the Latino and Black communities becoming homeowners is really positive for them and their future.
Written by Jeanette Sanchez
Sources:
Block Club Chicago: Black and Latino Chicagoans Are Snapping Up Two-Flats-A Promising Sign, Experts Say.
The Washington Post: Pandemic led to sharp spike in Black, Asian and Latino home ownership.
Block Club Chicago: Housing Nonprofit Aims To Help More South Side Families Become Homeowners With New Chatham Office.
Mountain America Credit Union: The Benefits of Home Ownership.
Block Club Chicago: Wait, Are Two-Flats Only A Chicago Thing? Why These Uniquely Chicago Homes Have Thrived For A Century.
Featured Image Courtesy of Eric Allix Rogers Flickr Page-Creative Commons License
Inset Image Courtesy of Ian Muttoo Flickr Page-Creative Commons License
