AP:Immigrants' Homebuying Dreams Lift Slumping Market

[Nouveauxpoor]

Immigrants' Homebuying Dreams Lift Slumping Market
Last Update: Jul 30, 2007 1:34 PM

By MARK JEWELL, AP Business Writer

BILLERICA, Mass. (AP) -- Patricia Ortiz and her husband Sebastian cut back on dining out, nights at the movies, and even opted for a civil wedding ceremony instead of a big church affair so they could afford to buy their $389,000 three-bedroom colonial.

In doing so, the Panamanian natives helped lift the nation's slumping housing market.

With rising purchasing power, the nation's growing number of foreign-born residents are keeping the bottom from falling out. And amid slow demand from an aging and slow-growing native population, immigrants are fueling predictions of a rebound.

Assuming Congress doesn't impose further restrictions, immigrants -- both legal and illegal -- and their native-born children are forecast to provide the bulk of coming years' growth in homebuying demand, nudging the market back up and aiding the broader economy.

U.S. household growth from 2005 through 2015 is projected to reach about 14.6 million -- about 2 million greater than in 1995-2005 -- primarily because of greater numbers of immigrants, according to a recent analysis by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. Most native-born children of immigrants are classified as minorities, and minorities' share of new U.S. households -- a key driver of housing demand -- is expected to rise from a little more than two-thirds now to more than three-quarters by 2020, according to an earlier Harvard study.

"As we come out of the this housing recession, immigrants will continue to have an ever-larger role," said Dowell Myers, a University of Southern California professor who studies immigrants' upward mobility. "If you were to stop immigration, it would be devastating, because it would eventually pull this huge chunk out of the housing market's foundation."

For immigrants who've left behind their families and cultures for a chance at a better life, homebuying is another risk worth taking. Patricia Ortiz and her husband took out an adjustable-rate mortgage to buy last year in the Boston suburb of Billerica, figuring the risk of seeing their current $3,000 monthly payments rise is offset by the value of having a place they and their newborn daughter can call home.

"Once you take the jump, you find ways to make it work," said Ortiz, 31, a supervisor at a dental insurance provider and a naturalized citizen. "But it's always in the back of my mind that if I don't make it, I am going to have to pack up and go back to Panama. You kind of feel like you have to strive for everything you do."

Immigrants formed more than 40 percent of the new households the nation added from 2000 to 2005, up from a less than 30 percent share of net new households in the 1990s and about 15 percent in the 1980s, the Harvard center found in its latest annual housing market study.

"The number of new homes being built is sensitive to the number of households added, which is why immigration is so important to the housing market," said Eric Belsky, the center's executive director.

From 2000 to 2005, the nation added more than 1.2 million immigrants per year, the Harvard study found. That boosted the nation's foreign-born to more than 12 percent of overall population, a level last seen in the 1930s.

Although immigrants remain less likely to own a home and more likely to rent than native-born people, the Harvard study found that the foreign-born accounted for 13.8 percent of all homebuyers in 2005 who had moved in within the preceding four years, up from 11.4 percent in 2001.

The numbers are much higher in some immigrant-rich states. In California, nearly one-third of recent homebuyers were foreign-born in 2005. For New York, New Jersey and Florida, the figures were between one-quarter and one-fifth.

Beyond the numbers, names tell the story:

In 2000, the most common surnames among U.S. homebuyers were Smith, Johnson, Brown, Williams and Miller. In 2005, Rodriguez and Garcia bumped out Brown and Miller, according to DataQuick Information Systems, a San Diego firm which analyzed deeds and county assessment data records across most of the U.S.

Immigrants tend to be younger than the native-born residents, and thus are more likely to be at an age when they're looking for starter homes.

"Immigrants are buying up the bottom of the housing market," said Myers, the USC professor. "And if the bottom is soft, prices collapse. A small home is pushing up the market, keeping home values up for the Hollywood Hills mansions."

Real estate professionals are seizing the market opportunity from immigrant clientele. Nearly three-quarters of Brian Shifrin's home appraisal business, Global Real Property Solutions, is geared toward immigrant buyers in a suburban area west of Boston that has seen a recent influx of native-born Brazilians.

"When I meet people at a realtors' function, or at an appraisal class, there's always a buzz about how slow it is, about how difficult it is to get work," Shifrin said. "But I can't really relate to that."

Looking more than a decade ahead, immigrants and their children are being counted on to buy up much of the forecasted glut of homes for sale when baby boomers enter their 70s -- an age when many will move to retirement communities and assisted living centers or die.

"There are not going to be enough white, native-born people to buy them all those homes," said Myers, the USC professor. "We face this issue of a generational housing bubble. Immigrant homebuyers are going to be much more important in the future.

"It's their kids that are going to be the ones who save us when the baby boomers are going to retire."

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.theledger.com/article/20070730/APF/707300700

[zeezil]

I see no distinction made between LEGAL and ILLEGAL here. The spin never ends. So now, "immigrants" are going to rescue or economy by stopping the housing market slide???

[BorderLegionnaire]

Well with all the free loans from Bank Of Un-America with no credit check and the like no wonder they can get housing!!! I can't even move out of my parents house because of the astronomical prices for apartments around here!!! And I work in Manhattan and make "good" money!!!

"Good" - can be bad or great to some people..... I term it as good on account on some jobs on Long Island that pay "bad"... Well because of all the cheap illegal labor drives wages to low (bad) range where you need 2 or 3 "bad" paying jobs to live very uncomfortably!!!!

[zeezil]

Dreams

Seems like all we ever hear about immigrants (with legal and illegal lumped in together) by the MSM and the bleeding hearts are that they DREAM...about coming to America....finding a better life...wanting to love America...wanting to contribute to our economy...wanting to make America stronger...wanting to raise their family and keep it together...wanting to assimilate...wanting to own a home...with all these DREAMS they have...just how do they find the time to be so supposidly hard-working???

[BorderLegionnaire]

Dreams

Seems like all we ever hear about immigrants (with legal and illegal lumped in together) by the MSM and the bleeding hearts are that they DREAM...about coming to America....finding a better life...wanting to love America...wanting to contribute to our economy...wanting to make America stronger...wanting to raise their family and keep it together...wanting to assimilate...wanting to own a home...with all these DREAMS they have...just how do they find the time to be so supposidly hard-working???

They dream hard work too!!!!!

So what do they do???

[BetsyRoss]

And they are buying in the current market with ARMs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is how that story is likely to end - the way it already has for so many others like these folks: http://www.denverpost.com/specialreports/ci_6186124

[jimpasz]

How to buy a dream home

Steal an ID or work under the table and pay no taxes
have no insurance of any kind just freeload
food stamps- wic breed like a hamster
live in section 8 housing no elec gas or water to pay little or no rent
beg or steal from "rich Americans"
sign up for welfare programs under different names..borrow extra kids
sue anyone that helps you
march against America and drag the US flag on the ground
break laws and claim your being abused by racist cops
demand help from taxpayers when you think you my want something
you deserve because your so special.

[Nicole]

For immigrants who've left behind their families and cultures for a chance at a better life, homebuying is another risk worth taking. Patricia Ortiz and her husband took out an adjustable-rate mortgage to buy last year in the Boston suburb of Billerica, figuring the risk of seeing their current $3,000 monthly payments rise is offset by the value of having a place they and their newborn daughter can call home.


Left behind their culture? You're kidding me, right?

[Lone_Patriot]

what about a couple other 'little' facts about the housing market. if it weren't for illegals (both visa over stayers and cheap uneducated labor) the wages would not be continually forced down. all the extra expenses we incur from illegals, education, health care, incarceration, welfare etc. that keep driving taxes up to unbearable rates. forcing many American citizens to be unable to afford a decent home or afford what they currently own. this country was doing fine before the invasion, i don't believe anyone really thinks these uneducated criminals are the USA's housing market salvation. this is big businesses & politicians propaganda.

[IndianaJones]

How to buy a dream home

Steal an ID or work under the table and pay no taxes
have no insurance of any kind just freeload
food stamps- wic breed like a hamster
live in section 8 housing no elec gas or water to pay little or no rent
beg or steal from "rich Americans"
sign up for welfare programs under different names..borrow extra kids
sue anyone that helps you
march against America and drag the US flag on the ground
break laws and claim your being abused by racist cops
demand help from taxpayers when you think you my want something
you deserve because your so special.

Yeah but you never see this information in the papers.