What will it take for African-Americans and Hispanics to regain what they lost in the recession?

The Great Recession of 2008-2009 had a devastating effect on the mortgage industry as a whole in the U.S., but particularly on homeownership rates. In the years following the crisis, mortgage originations plummeted while foreclosures skyrocketed, knocking the U.S. homeownership rate down from 68 percent in 2009 to 64 percent in 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The severe economic downturn not only crushed the overall rate of homeownership, but wiped out gains in homeownership among African-Americans and Hispanics that had taken decades to build up since the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968 and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed in 1973, according to a white paper written by Lariece M. Brown and Jaya Dey, both of Freddie Mac. A report commissioned by the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) written by James H. Carr, Michela Zonta, and Steven P. Hornburg found that the gap in homeownership rates between African-Americans and non-Hispanic whites was 30 percentage points in 2018 (72 percent compared to 42 percent), the highest it has been in the new millennium. For Hispanics, the gap was at 26 percentage points in 2016 (72 percent compared to 46 percent), according to the NAREB report.

Why the remaining gap in homeownership rates? According to Brown and Dey …