Thread: The Impact of Immigration Reform On the U.S. Housing Market

http://www.multi-housingnews.com/multih ... &&&&&imw=Y

JANUARY 04, 2007 --

If the House of Representatives passes its version of the immigration bill--which calls for tighter restrictions along the Mexican border--it will directly affect the U.S. economy, and severely impact realtors in states with a high percentage of Hispanic-American home buyers. America's future generations will also feel the impact, since limiting the number of immigrants entering the U.S. will also limit the number of next-generation Hispanic Americans. In fact, a study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University predicts that the country's Hispanic population will make up 40 percent of first-time home buyers by 2026.

But that will change should Congress get its way, and toughen enforcement and border security, which will, essentially, treat illegal immigrants as felons. The truth is undocumented workers contribute immensely to their communities and the economy. They have established businesses, bought homes and immersed themselves seamlessly into American life.

They support the hotel and tourism industries, build roads, and landscape home and business properties. And they provide a reliable labor force to big-box retailers--stores that have become such an extraordinary part of American culture that it would be hard to imagine everyday existence without them.

There is a more reasonable solution to immigration reform. It's the Senate version of the immigration bill, which combines the House version's tougher rules and border security with a guest worker program, and a clear path to citizenship for some 11 million illegal immigrants.

Both bills, however, fundamentally seek to clamp down on Hispanic immigration. But before legislators put pen to paper, they and their constituencies should carefully consider the Hispanic-American demographic's real impact on U.S. economic health. Clamping down on Hispanic immigration would mean billions in lost tax revenue, and would reduce by millions the number of potential buyers for goods and services. Consider the story that the following figures tell:

Immigrant households and businesses pay over $162 billion in federal, state and local taxes annually, according to the American Immigration Law Foundation.

Undocumented immigrants contribute at least $300 billion annually to the U.S. GNP, according to a UCLA study.

The rate of homeownership among the nation's 42.7 million Hispanics hit a record 50 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005, according to a Harvard University study.

Foreign-born workers represent 13 percent of the U.S. labor force, of which 20 percent work in the service industry, according to the American Immigration Law Foundation.

Hispanics represent less than 11 percent of U.S. households, but account for 27 percent of net household growth from 1995 to 2005, according to the Harvard study.

The Harvard study also found U.S.-born children of immigrants made up 9 percent of 10- to 19-year-olds in 2005.

Fully 14.6 percent of all U.S. homebuyers were Hispanic in 2000, a 10.3 percent increase over 1995.

Clearly America's Hispanic population moved rapidly into the middle class, creating a viable demographic of home buyers. But of all the statistics, perhaps the last two are the most important. These newly minted first-generation Americans are poised to comprise the bulk of Hispanic home buyers, who already represent a solid 15 percent of homeowners.

If the U.S. enacts tougher immigration laws, the home-buying markets in New Mexico, Texas, California and Nevada would suffer first, and most. Those states benefited from the largest percentage of Hispanic home buyers in 2000: New Mexico, 35 percent; Texas, 20 percent; California, 18 percent; and Nevada 14.5 percent. Realty markets in Arizona (14 percent of homebuyers are of Hispanic descent), Florida (13 percent), Colorado (12 percent), New Jersey (12 percent), Illinois (11 percent) and New York (8 percent), would also be at risk for a big hit.

While there's no way to predict what effect immigration restrictions will have on states with low numbers of Hispanic-Americans, history tells us that as successive waves of immigrants cross our borders, they spread beyond initial cultural centers into states with greater job opportunities. As their presence grows, so does their impact on the national real estate market.

Ultimately, our representatives in Washington, D.C. will decide what message they think the electorate wants to send. America historically welcomed immigrants who, in many cases, risked their lives to find a better life--the American Dream--here.

Those immigrants changed the face of America, and for the better, most would agree. But many Americans today fear such change. Lawmakers must be careful to strike a balance between fear and the future, and enact immigration reform that recognizes the social and economic impact of Hispanic Americans.

Illegals were part of what caused the housing bubble. I saw that in my area. Shady loans were marketed to them so that they could enjoy the American dream. When they couldn't pay, no problem, because the perpetrators had all cashed their commission checks long before. Yes, they'll leave behind a lot of vacant houses, but guess what - they already are. Last year the Colorado Attorney General launched an investigation - one of the shady outfits had the poor sense to do business in the hallways of an office building that also housed offices for the CBI. For a time there were three empty homes on my block.

Besides, it's hard to imagine that they'll damage the housing market any more than it already is. In my part of the world, it's dead.

Yes, America has 5-10 million excess housing units we do not need.

There will be corrective economic pain in the construction and realty industries once the laws are enforced. It will clear up in a few years as the American birthrate increases in the more affordable housing climate.

W

I read in Parade magazine a few months back that there is currently a mini baby boom going on in the middle to upper middle class. Many people not stopping at two, but going on to three and even four.

It doesn't mention illegals, but it's about my area and I know who and what I saw (and so does everyone else here). Note the silly 'balanced reporting' - it IS the worst.

http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... S/70104001

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Denver foreclosures pass 1980s record
By The Associated Press


DENVER — The Denver area saw 19,425 real estate foreclosures last year, eclipsing the record set in the late 1980s when Colorado’s energy industry collapsed, according to public trustee’s offices in the seven-county metropolitan area.

The 1988 mark of 17,122 foreclosures had been surpassed in November, when public trustee’s offices reported 17,782 in the first 11 months of 2006.

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Experts say foreclosures are being fueled by consumers locking into risky loans or falling for an increasing number of mortgage-fraud schemes. They also blame inflated appraisals and aggressive building in Weld County, northeast Adams and Denver counties, and parts of Aurora.

“I’m still very concerned and disappointed for consumers in Colorado and in my area of Denver in particular,” said City Councilman Michael Hancock, who represents northeast Denver, where there is a high concentration of homes in foreclosure.

Sandy Hume, Boulder County public trustee, said he has been told the foreclosure crisis “will get worse before it gets better.”

“This is devastating economically,” he said.

Still, the crisis is not as bad as it seems, said Chris Holbert, president of the Colorado Mortgage Lenders Association. A huge growth in population, housing construction and homeownership has kept the total foreclosure rate as a percentage of all homes lower than it was two decades ago.

“It is a problem, a big problem, but it is not the worst it has ever been,” he said.

I have 6 young adult relatives that can not afford a rental because the illegal aliens are living in the low price range homes and apartments.

Get them out and young adults and young married couples will fill them up. They have been pushed out and have to stay at home longer because the illegals have taken their jobs and their potential homes.

We will need fewer illegal alien construction workers too! Good bye to the day labor sites!

That's a load of crap!

Dixie

Hi BestyRoss

I think your right. The below articles have the stats.


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The New Red-Diaper Babies
By DAVID BROOKS

Published: December 7, 2004


Columnist Page: David Brooks
Forum: Discuss This Column

E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com



here is a little-known movement sweeping across the United States. The movement is "natalism."

All across the industrialized world, birthrates are falling - in Western Europe, in Canada and in many regions of the United States. People are marrying later and having fewer kids. But spread around this country, and concentrated in certain areas, the natalists defy these trends.

They are having three, four or more kids. Their personal identity is defined by parenthood. They are more spiritually, emotionally and physically invested in their homes than in any other sphere of life, having concluded that parenthood is the most enriching and elevating thing they can do. Very often they have sacrificed pleasures like sophisticated movies, restaurant dining and foreign travel, let alone competitive careers and disposable income, for the sake of their parental calling.

In a world that often makes it hard to raise large families, many are willing to move to find places that are congenial to natalist values. The fastest-growing regions of the country tend to have the highest concentrations of children. Young families move away from what they perceive as disorder, vulgarity and danger and move to places like Douglas County in Colorado (which is the fastest-growing county in the country and has one of the highest concentrations of kids). Some people see these exurbs as sprawling, materialistic wastelands, but many natalists see them as clean, orderly and affordable places where they can nurture children.

If you wanted a one-sentence explanation for the explosive growth of far-flung suburbs, it would be that when people get money, one of the first things they do is use it to try to protect their children from bad influences.

So there are significant fertility inequalities across regions. People on the Great Plains and in the Southwest are much more fertile than people in New England or on the Pacific coast.

You can see surprising political correlations. As Steve Sailer pointed out in The American Conservative, George Bush carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility rates, and 25 of the top 26. John Kerry won the 16 states with the lowest rates.

In The New Republic Online, Joel Kotkin and William Frey observe, "Democrats swept the largely childless cities - true blue locales like San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Boston and Manhattan have the lowest percentages of children in the nation - but generally had poor showings in those places where families are settling down, notably the Sun Belt cities, exurbs and outer suburbs of older metropolitan areas."

Politicians will try to pander to this group. They should know this is a spiritual movement, not a political one. The people who are having big families are explicitly rejecting materialistic incentives and hyperindividualism. It costs a middle-class family upward of $200,000 to raise a child. These people are saying money and ambition will not be their gods.

Natalists resist the declining fertility trends not because of income, education or other socioeconomic characteristics. It's attitudes. People with larger families tend to attend religious services more often, and tend to have more traditional gender roles.

I draw attention to natalists because they're an important feature of our national life. Because of them, the U.S. stands out in all sorts of demographic and cultural categories. But I do it also because when we talk about the divide on values in this country, caricatured in the red and blue maps, it's important that we understand the true motive forces behind it.

Natalists are associated with red America, but they're not launching a jihad. The differences between them and people on the other side of the cultural or political divide are differences of degree, not kind. Like most Americans, but perhaps more anxiously, they try to shepherd their kids through supermarket checkouts lined with screaming Cosmo or Maxim cover lines. Like most Americans, but maybe more so, they suspect that we won't solve our social problems or see improvements in our schools as long as many kids are growing up in barely functioning families.

Like most Americans, and maybe more so because they tend to marry earlier, they find themselves confronting the consequences of divorce. Like most Americans, they wonder how we can be tolerant of diverse lifestyles while still preserving the family institutions that are under threat.

What they cherish, like most Americans, is the self-sacrificial love shown by parents. People who have enough kids for a basketball team are too busy to fight a culture war.


E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com

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Yes, we need to free up lower cost housing for families just starting out. Illegal immigration is taking slots needed by our people. NO I don't mean just white people. I had a black guy working for me who'd managed to trace his geneology back to two lines in the 18th century: one slave and one free. Mine doesn't go back that far. Studies show that African Americans are hurt worse by illegal immigration than us whites.By 'our people' I mean the folks like me who have no where else to go if America doesn't work out for us.

Experts say foreclosures are being fueled by consumers locking into risky loans or falling for an increasing number of mortgage-fraud schemes.

Foreclosures are rampant in this country.

Someday in an enlightened world these "experts" are going to figure out that people are into these finance vehicles because they don't have enough money. People try to live, and think they should be able to live, like they did when they were growing up. That's over. Global competition makes us meet workers in the world market that live in shacks made of tin.

Hispanics represent less than 11 percent of U.S. households, but account for 27 percent of net household growth from 1995 to 2005, according to the Harvard study.

HISPANICS ACCOUNTED FOR 27 PERCENT OF NET HOUSEHOLD GROWTH FROM 1995-2005!

27% is an extremely large number considering Hispanics only represent 11 percent of U.S. households. I wonder what the growth would have been without illegal immigration? That's a rhetorical question, because I'm sure I already know the answer!