Homeownership is a primary way to build family wealth and pass it down to future generations, but only if the family can sustain homeownership and access its benefits. Sustained homeownership depends on access to safe and affordable financing, resources to weather financial shocks and economic downturns, and pathways for investing and sharing in the prosperity of one’s home and community. When these are in place, families, communities, and the housing system thrive, reflecting the vision of the American dream of homeownership. But for many homeowners, it is more of a mirage.
Because of a history of exclusion from housing opportunities, the aforementioned risks, combined with the harmful effects of structural racism, can disproportionately plague households of color, undermining their ability to achieve, maintain, and experience the benefits of homeownership.
We have learned a lot about these key issues, and research findings have informed policy targeting foreclosure prevention, navigating financial hardships, and preserving housing, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic recession.
The research links below illustrate the Urban Institute's Housing Finance Policy Center (HFPC)’s expertise in this area. Return to this page as we add new research on sustaining homeownership.
Current work: Homeownership and Wealth Preservation in Communities of Color
The Urban Institute is partnering with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to examine the key issues around sustaining homeownership for communities of color, including foreclosure prevention, access to home renovation and improvement financing, and property insurance equity.
HFPC's Prior Work on Sustaining Homeownership
Loss Mitigation
The array of loss mitigation tools first employed during the pandemic—such as forbearance, which helped 8 million struggling borrowers temporarily suspend their mortgage payments because of a hardship—were very effective in preventing a large wave of foreclosures, aided by low mortgage rates. But designing a robust toolkit that protects struggling homeowners in all economic conditions is ongoing.
Refinancing
Ensuring that all borrowers who can refinance can do so is critical to help them lower their monthly payments and sustain their mortgages.
Racial Equity
Black and Hispanic homeowners in particular accrue fewer financial benefits than white homeowners, limiting their ability to buffer against economic shocks or to renovate or improve their home to increase safety, sustainability, and value. Ultimately, this limits the wealth that Black and Hispanic homeowners can pass on intergenerationally, which perpetuates and compounds racial wealth gaps across generations.
Home Quality and Home Repair
Reducing the cost and increasing the availability of home renovation financing and improving borrowers’ ability to access their home equity could help families live in adequate housing and equally benefit from homeownership.
Climate
Climate change has fueled an emerging class of catastrophic events posing a disproportionate threat to sustaining homeownership among communities of color. Building household and community resilience against the growing threat of climate change, and insuring against increasing climate risk, will ensure that families can maintain their homes and continue to build wealth.
Recessionary Shocks
Economic downturns can lead to even worse outcomes for people or households of color. Policies to stabilize households in need can help prevent cyclical disparities from becoming more deeply entrenched.
