Homeownership provides numerous benefits over renting, including predictable housing costs, secure tenure, and the potential to save money and build wealth. In Michigan, homeownership rates for African Americans have declined dramatically over the last 18 years, from 60 percent in 2000 to 41 percent in 2016. In this brief, the authors recommend strategies to address two pressing and interrelated issues for making homeownership sustainable for the long term: tax foreclosures and land contracts. Both of these issues are challenges regardless of race; but, as the authors illustrate in the brief, they disproportionately affect African Americans. The authors provide a set of policy recommendations to decrease tax foreclosure and reduce losses from land contracts in Michigan.
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