Immigrants Continue To Spur Housing Demand

Washington, DC, March 7, 2013 -- Immigrants will increasingly buy and rent homes in the U.S. through 2020, according to a new report created by the Population Dynamics Research Group at the University of Southern California for the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The report entitled "Immigrant Contributions to Housing Demand in the United States: A Comparison of Recent Decades and Projections to 2020 for the States and Nation," constructs a demographic-based projection through 2020 of the growth in homeowner and renter households headed by immigrants.

Key findings from the study include:

• The volume of growth in foreign-born homeowners has increased each decade, rising from 0.8 million added immigrant homeowners in the U.S. during 1980¬-1990, to 2.1 million added in 1990–2000, to 2.4 million added in 2000–2010, and is projected to rise further to 2.8 million in growth in the current decade.

• Foreign-born ownership demand comprised the majority of all growth in homeownership in the established gateway states of California and New York as well as Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio and Michigan.

• Between 2010–2020, immigrants nationwide are projected to account for 32.2 percent of the growth in all households, including 35.7 percent growth in homeowners and 26.4 percent growth in renter households.

• Foreign-born homeownership demand rose most dramatically in the newer destination states, such as Georgia and North Carolina.

• In this decade, foreign-born renters comprise over one third of projected total growth in seven states: California, Washington, D.C. metro area, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Illinois.

“Rising numbers of foreign-born households are driven by the continued increases in homeownership rates achieved as immigrants settle longer in the United States,” said John Pitkin Senior Research Associate of the Population Dynamics Research Group at the University of Southern California.