Immigrant and Native Asset Accumulation in Housing

Abstract

Purchasing a home is the largest expenditure many people will make during their lifetime, as well as their greatest source of wealth. There is a homeownership gap between natives and immigrants well documented in the literature. I examine the determinants of homeownership, the value of purchased homes (a measure of potential housing wealth), and the equity owned for those who have purchased a home (a measure of actual housing wealth) for immigrants and natives. When immigrants are separated by citizenship status the homeownership gap between natives and immigrants is shown to be a gap between natives and non-citizen immigrants. Immigrant citizens have ownership outcomes as good or better than natives. Further, the gap reflects a problem in ownership, brought about by age and income distributional differences, not in value or equity for homeowners. All immigrants are predicted to have higher home value and home equity than natives.

Citation

Kossoudji, S.A. (2007), "Immigrant and Native Asset Accumulation in Housing", Chiswick, B.R. (Ed.) Immigration (Research in Labor Economics, Vol. 27), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 185-213. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0147-9121(07)00005-2