Black homeownership: The role of temporal changes and residential segregation at the end of the 20th century

Objective. This study examines how the odds of a black renter becoming a homeowner changed during the 1990s, considering significant policy changes aimed at dismantling discriminatory barriers to nonwhite homeownership during that time period and various housing-market characteristics, including the level of residential segregation. Methodds. This study uses geocoded data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and from the 1990 and 2000 Censuses to estimate an event-history model of transition into homeownership for black Americans. Results. The results of this study suggest that blacks benefited from the changing home-lending environment and were more likely to become homeowners during the 1990s. These improvements appear to be both absolute and relative to whites. This implies that the policy changes had some success. Nevertheless, blacks were significantly less likely to become homeowners during the study period-even after controlling for a variety of factors known to be associated with homeownership-suggesting that further reforms may be necessary to eradicate disparities in access to homeownership between whites and blacks. The analysis also shows that blacks residing in metro areas with the highest levels of racial isolation were significantly more likely to become homeowners than blacks residing in metro areas with the lowest levels of isolation. Conclusion. The study results show that the policy reforms of the 1990s likely had a salutary effect on black homeownership. The results also suggest that residential segregation matters to black homeownership in complex ways.