ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 15, 1996 TAG: 9602150073
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
NEARLY 71 PERCENT of white households in Virginia own houses. About half of minority households do, a study says.
While the portion of Virginia families owning their homes has grown, minorities are much less likely than whites to be buyers of housing - even when their incomes are similar.
Nearly 71 percent of white households own houses, compared with about half of minority households, according to a new study by the Virginia Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech.
The gap isn't as big among the wealthy; it is largest among the poor. About half of white households with incomes less than $10,000 own their homes, compared with 33 percent of black households. Many of those in this group are elderly people who own their homes outright.
Theodore Koebel, the research center's director, says the reasons for this disparity are complex.
For example, minority families often have less in savings and fewer assets than white families with similar incomes.
Also, Koebel said, studies show that minority applicants are more likely to be turned down for mortgages and insurance. And the legacy of discrimination also may reduce minority families' expectations that they have a chance to become homeowners, he said.
The center's research was based mostly on U.S. Census figures from 1980 and 1990. Other findings:
* Homeownership in Virginia grew - from 65.6 percent of households to 66.3 percent of households - even while it fell slightly nationwide, from 64.4 percent in 1980 to 64.2 percent a decade later. The report attributes this to rising average incomes in the state. Virginians' average income outpaced inflation and incomes in the rest of the nation.
* Rapidly rising house prices in some areas of the state didn't diminish growth in homeownership. In fact, some Northern Virginia counties where housing prices are highest also had the largest increases in homeownership.
* Single women with children have much lower ownership rates than two-parent families or male-headed households. Only about 22 percent of households headed by women 25 to 34 years old own homes. The report says the "profoundly depressed rates of homeownership for female-headed families below age 25 represents one of the greatest challenges to contemporary housing policy."
The report recommends that governments offer low-interest loans and other programs to single mothers and minorities.
But the report said dramatic increases in homeownership probably won't come without increases in these households' incomes.
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