NAHB Study Details Ethnic Housing Preferences

Washington, DC, March 11, 2014 -- The National Association of Home Builders has released the results of a new study, What Home Buyers Really Want: Ethnic Preferences.

This new study compares and contrasts how housing preferences are affected by the racial or ethnic background of a home buyer, after controlling for factors such as age and income.

“The new data reveals some interesting findings about home buying preferences broken down by race and ethnicity,” said NAHB Chairman Kevin Kelly.

“It contains invaluable information for builders by providing a window into the preferences of potential home buyers, and allowing them to tailor things to better meet the needs of their customers.”

The survey data confirmed that there are some significant differences across the various ethnic groups of buyers such as:

• Minority home buyers are typically younger than White non-Hispanics buyers. The median African-American buyer is 39, the Hispanic buyer is 37, and the Asian buyer is about 36, while the median White buyer is 43 years old.

• Fifty percent or more of buyers in all racial/ethnic groups are married couples: 80 percent of White buyers, 50 percent of African-Americans, 74 percent of Hispanics, and 79 percent of Asians. Most also have children living at home.

• Asian home buyers have the highest median household income of all four groups, $72,797, compared with $67,747 for Whites, $50,221 for Hispanics, and $43,774 for African-Americans. Asians also expect to pay the most for their home: $283,469, compared with $205,775 among Whites, $181,444 among Hispanics, and $176,397 among African-Americans.

On Wednesday, March 12 at 2 p.m. EST, NAHB will host a webinar to discuss the findings of the survey.