Facing a Troubled Economy—How Race and the Generations Intersect

The housing gap is getting more extreme as time goes on. Which means young people are having a harder time of it. Racial identity continues to be an overlapping factor.

What Makes Up a Housing Gap?

The Redfin/Rocket real estate company examined the most recent full year, 2025. Redfin’s study shows a third of millennials who identify themselves as Black own a home. That isn’t a lot. Consider that two-thirds of self-identified white millennials reported holding the deeds to their homes.

Homeownership rates for younger Black adults declined most during the year. During that same time, their white peers acquired deeds in increasing numbers.

And the youngest of all hopeful buyers? For most, a deed of their own is just not in the cards. Redfin reports that just 14% of Blacks under 28 own their own home. Their percentage would need to double to keep pace with their white peers.

Black workers are being hard hit by this rocky economy. Redfin also notes that the playing field is slanted, given redlining and bias baked into deeds for decades. The company additionally cited a LendingTree study finding that Black homebuyers are only half as likely to get approved for a mortgage as their white counterparts.

What Would Real Fairness in Housing Look Like?

Robust summaries of effective remedies have been developed. These remedies are possible, where there’s a will. They would include:

• Down payment assistance. First-time buyer incentives are needed in a systematic way, if the United States would truly support the path to homeownership for millions of sidelined home seekers. Minneapolis/St Paul’s Advancing Black Homeownership Community Fund is setting an example. The Fund equips eligible first-time Black applicants with zero-interest loans of up to $45K to put down on homes. This assistance opens the door to the market for first-timers. And the home buyers can choose their own lenders.

• Loans with a purpose, invested in homeowner success. Part of the above-mentioned loans are forgiven. If the home buyer keeps the home as a primary residence for five years, $20K is forgivable. No remaining debt needs to be repaid at all after 30 years, so it’s like having a 30-year home loan that doesn’t need to be repaid if the household stays in place.

• Zoning reforms. States across the country are acknowledging a need to stop treating single-unit residential zones as sacred. Upzoning so deed holders can create additional units and backyard cottages is a real community builder—where it’s given a chance to work.

• Government willingness to invest in affordability. What better expenditure could possibly be made by governments at all levels? The median U.S. sale price per home is above $400K. In just five years home price inflation shot up 28%! This sidelines large swathes of the U.S. population from having any hope of earning and setting aside enough money to afford a mortgage and buy a home.

• Supportive credit treatment in mortgage applications. Although race-based discrimination is against the law, the stats show serious discrepancies in lending. A major reason is the comparative lack of inherited wealth supporting Black loan applicants, which makes it more difficult to purchase a new home.

A Case Study: Minneapolis/St Paul

The counties of Minneapolis and St Paul have exceptionally strong rates of deed ownership. At the same time, the racial gap is startling. Not even one in three Black households in Minneapolis holds the deed to their homes. Yet three-fourths of white households live in homes they own.

What’s going on here? As advocates point out, Black households have been deliberately denied “access to wealth, education, policing, safety, neighborhood parks and public transportation – what other communities take for granted.”

The Black Homeownership Collaborative of Minneapolis/St Paul was formed to help close the deed gap. Who’s who in the collaboration? A diverse crew of well-known money and housing groups. Among the names: the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, the National Association of REALTORS®, the Urban Institute, the NAACP, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Fair Housing Alliance, the National Housing Conference, the Urban League… All are working together in a concerted, multi-phase action to shrink the racial deed gap. They’re striving to see the Black homeownership rate rise by over 10%, to the highest it’s ever been.

The Collaborative recommends:

• Counseling for hopeful home buyers. Why are homebuyer education sessions so important? Homeownership advocates say well-informed residents have stronger capacities to overcome credit challenges, cope with student loan debt, and work with limited resources in order to reach the goal of obtaining a deed.  

• Support that continues after closing day. Post-purchase support teams have a demonstrated ability to keep mortgage loans on the right track. For first-generation buyers, the help is especially meaningful. It’s known as homeownership sustainability. African-American deed holders own their homes for briefer lengths of time than their white peers, the stats show. They are also more likely to experience the trauma of foreclosure. Early avenues to assistance are very important for struggling mortgage borrowers.  

The Collaborative extends these forms of support. The buyers get two meetings with certified housing counselors after they become deed holders. This may take the home buyer’s time away from other necessary tasks. So the Collaborative offers buyers a $5,000 stipend for attending the two meetings (or $2,500 for attending just one).

More broadly across the states, Habitat for Humanity offers financial coaching for Black households to promote gains in homeownership. Other groups may be hard at work in your state or county.

Getting to Yes With Affordability

Why do we all need to root for this? The answer is as simple as the Golden Rule. This is not about charity. It’s not about paternalism. Given that the playing field has been slanted for so long, the above kinds of assistance are modest steps to simple fairness.

As a society, it’s our responsibility to offer that fairness. There’s no good reason to shrink from responsibility for the lingering effects of the systematic disadvantaging of any social group.

And the federal government must provide backup. All government agencies should back and enforce the fair housing and consumer protection policies. Because these policies are not luxuries. And because ignoring the spirit and the letter of our fair housing laws would be unconstitutional.

A Broader View of the Homeownership Gap

While historical policies and structural barriers have played a role in shaping today’s disparities, current homeownership gaps are also influenced by a range of economic and financial factors that apply across all buyers.

Income levels, savings for down payments, and debt-to-income ratios remain the primary drivers of mortgage approval and home purchases. Buyers with higher incomes, lower debt, and stronger credit profiles are more likely to qualify—regardless of background.

Geography also plays a significant role. Home prices vary widely across the country, and buyers concentrated in higher-cost markets face steeper barriers to entry. In addition, differences in household formation and access to financial support—such as family assistance for down payments—can affect when and whether individuals are able to purchase a home.

Mortgage approval data can reflect these underlying factors. Approval rates are based on financial qualifications at the time of application, and differences in applicant profiles can influence outcomes independent of lender intent.

Understanding the homeownership gap requires acknowledging both the long-term effects of past policies and the present-day economic realities that shape access to property ownership.