Posted on August 4, 2017
BOSTON --- Reports that blacks aren’t sharing in the nation’s homeownership recovery is a clear sign that ONE Mortgage is needed more than ever.
Nationwide, statistics show that while the national homeownership rate is stabilizing, blacks s are not sharing in the recovery from the 2007 recession. According to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, the homeownership rate for blacks has fallen over the past 12 years to 42.2 percent while white rates have increased to 71.9 percent, the largest disparity since World War II.
A look at Massachusetts statistics shows how ONE Mortgage is pushing back against this tide. In 2015, while black households accounted for only 3.6 percent of all home-purchase loans in Massachusetts, 11.3 percent of all ONE Mortgage loans went to African-Americans. In 2016, African-Americans accounted for 12.3 percent of all ONE Mortgage loans.
The reason for this is ONE Mortgage was created to provide greater acccess to safe, secure mortgage financing. Orginally called SoftSecond, the program was created in 1990 in response to a study that found widespread racial discrimination in Boston mortgage lending. Since then, the program has helped more than 20,000 low- and moderate-income households purchase their first home. Nearly half are households of color.
Clearly, there’s more work to do to connect black households with ONE Mortgage’s low fixed-interest rate, financial assistance for qualified buyers in the early years of the loan, and a cash-funded loan loss reserve that helps homebuyers save hundreds in private mortgage insurance payments.
If you know someone who dreams of buying a home and building wealth but doesn’t think it’s possible, share this post and tell them to go the ONE Mortgage website for more information: www.mhp.net/onemortgage.