REPORT: Latinos to dominate real estate market by 2040

A new report from the Washington Post revealed that homeownership among Latinos is growing at a record pace and younger buyers are helping drive growth across the United States, altering existing real estate markets and making Latinos a key demographic to watch as the housing market continues to recover from the pandemic shutdown.

According to data from a forthcoming National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) report, homeownership rates amongst Latinos increased from 47.5% in 2019 to 48.4% in 2021 – representing the highest level in nearly two decades. Using recent Census Bureau data, NAHREP showed that there are now 8.8 million Latino homeowners in the United States – with 657,000 new owner households being added to the ranks since 2019.

“They’re coming in at the fastest rate of any group we’re seeing,” said Tatiana Busch, a real estate broker in Northern Virginia. “We’ve seen increases in Latino buyers for the past couple of years, but it accelerated during the pandemic and even in a tight market it hasn’t really slowed down.”

The data also showed that Riverside/San Bernardino, Calif; New York City; and Orlando saw the greatest increase in Latino homeownership – collectively adding more than 230,000 new Latino-owned households in 2021. Younger Latinos, the data suggests, are instead choosing to move to more affordable areas including Las Cruces, N.M.; Memphis; Cleveland; and Texas.

“Many Latinos were already considering homeownership before the pandemic,” said NAHREP CEO Gary Acosta, adding that 1.9 million Latinos have become first time homeowners since 2014.

“The numbers suggest the wheels were already in motion for this kind of growth, but it’s simply expanding now,” he added.

The Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. also expects that Latinos will drive growth within the real estate market and projects that by 2040, 70% of the net new homeowner households in the United States will be Latino. The think tank also shows that while Latinos only make up about 18% of the U.S.’ total population, they accounted for more than half of the total homeownership growth in the decade leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent figures from the Pew Research Center show that U.S. Latinos had a median age of 30 in 2019, roughly 15 years younger than the median age for non-Hispanic White Americans – meaning that their buying power as a demographic will likely only grow.

The expanding reach of Hispanic home buyers comes as home sales surged to the highest rate in 15 years in 2021 – driven by demand created by low interest rates and a strong post-pandemic recovery.

“This demographic is entering their early 30s now and that’s the most typical years for many first-time home buyers,” Zhu says. “So we should expect Hispanics to continue being a strong influence on the housing market for years to come.