Black and Latino households are lagging behind their white and Asian peers when it comes to homeownership throughout California, including Fresno.
That’s according to a new report from the California Association of Realtors. The annual report, released in April, breaks down housing affordability by ethnicity.
A median-priced home in Fresno County is $410,000, and the association said $103,200 is the minimum qualifying income.
The report also found that only 33% of county residents can afford to purchase a home, assuming a 20% down payment. And while some demographic groups struggled more–sometimes significantly more–than others, the report suggests that most Americans can’t afford a median-price home, with Black and brown people of color facing the heaviest burdens in Fresno and the rest of the state.
“The significant difference in housing affordability for Black and Hispanic/Latino households illustrates the homeownership gap and wealth disparity for communities of color, which could worsen as the economy slows and rates remain elevated in 2024,” the association said in their report.
Fresno County is a majority Hispanic/Latino, with the demographic representing 55% of the population according to the United States Census Bureau. The Black demographic makes up about 6% of the population — reflective of the state’s 6.5% average.
The disparity in who does and doesn’t have the money to buy a home could be in part due to the wage discrepancy between the demographics.
The report compared the median income for all of California — $92,420 — with the median income of residents broken up by demographic. The median income of Asian residents was $120,630, followed by white residents at $103,870; Hispanic/Latino residents were at $75,950 and the median salary for Black residents was $63,800.
Issues persist at the state level
But while median home prices fell slightly in 2023, Californians still have to earn more money to afford a median home than they did just one year earlier.
The association’s report found that only 18% of Californians earned enough to buy a $819,980 home — the state median price in 2023. The price in 2022 was $822,320. The 2022 report found that a potential homeowner would need to earn at least $186,800 annually to comfortably make payments on a median-priced home in 2022. Last year, that number climbed to $204,800.
The data also showed the financial pangs aren’t evenly distributed across the state. Only about 28% of Asians and 21% of white residents could afford a median-priced home in 2023. But just 9% of Black and Hispanic/Latino Californians could afford to buy that same house.
The association continues to push the state to fund the California Dream For All loan assistance program, which helps first-generation and first-time homebuyers cover housing costs like their initial down payment.
The City of Fresno attempts to help prospective homeowners by highlighting homebuying resources on their website, which include the California Dream For All program, and information on the Bank of America America’s Home Grant and Down Payment Grant programs.
Housing challenges have been front of mind in recent weeks for Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer, who recently told realtors the city was counting on the real estate industry to – hopefully– offset shortfalls in the city’s sales tax revenue ahead of a looming budget crunch.
Correcting past injustices
On top of the financial gaps among their white and Asian counterparts, prospective Black and Latino homeowners have historically faced racist policies by local and national banks and realtors. The issues have only recently been acknowledged.
In 2020, the National Association of Realtors released a statement apologizing for “past policies that contributed to racial inequality” and the CAR released a similar statement in 2022.
Allysunn Walker is the president and CEO of the Southwest Fresno Development Corporation — a group that attempts to bridge the wealth gap among demographics through homeownership.
Walker and the SWFDC attempt to help people in one of the city’s most underserved areas by encouraging homeownership and educating residents on the benefits that come with it.
For many, Walker says, education comes through a mental shift.
“People say, ‘I didn’t know I could buy a home’ or ‘I didn’t know that I’m not too old to do this,” Walker said. “‘How do I find a lender? How do they find me?’ We’ve had people ask questions as though they don’t know what their rights are.
“It’s so much deeper than just the house not being affordable. It’s a system that was set up to exclude people of color.”
“We’ve got folks that are renting $2,500, $3,000 for a two or three-bedroom rental,” Walker added. “If they can pay $2,500 for a rental then we believe that they can pay a mortgage.”
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