The Black homeownership rate today is virtually the same as it was when mortgage discrimination was legal.
The net worth of most Americans isn’t a stock portfolio; it’s the equity in their homes. It’s this equity that has created generational wealth for many White Americans.
But homeownership, which is so central to the American Dream, remains an unequal and financially frustrating experience for Black families.
When the Fair Housing Act was signed into law in 1968, prohibiting discrimination in renting, buying, or securing financing for housing, 41 percent of Black households owned their homes, according to census data. The hope was that this new legislation would dismantle systemic barriers, such as federal policies that prevented Black families from building wealth through homeownership.
This week, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, an icon of the civil rights movement, died. During a Senate Banking Committee hearing in February 2007, Jackson testifiedthat homeownership is one of the most reliable ways for economically disadvantaged populations to close the wealth gap.
“The cost of money for Black and Brown people is not based on equal opportunity, equal access, or equal protection under the law,” he said. “In the home mortgage industry, like other industries, people of color are economically exploited, resulting in a home-owning rate of fewer than 50 percent.”
Nearly two decades later, little has changed.
Two recent reports from LendingTree, an online loan marketplace, provide extensive analysis of the economic state of Black America. It’s more than worrisome, especially given the current administration’s mission to roll back hard-won gains by civil rights activists like Jackson.
Among the 50 largest cities, the Black homeownership rate is 43.6 percent, compared to 70.3 percent for Whites, according to the first report, “Homeownership’s Racial Divide.”
Only five metro areas have Black homeownership rates above 50 percent. Atlanta was at the top of the list with 55.3 percent, followed by Birmingham, Alabama (54.1 percent), Richmond (52.8 percent), Washington, D.C. (52.5 percent), and Miami (52 percent).
Even when they do own, Black homeowners’ median home values are lower — $278,500 in 2024 compared to the overall median home value for all homeowners of $360,600, a nearly 23 percent gap.
In a second report released in time for Black History Month, LendingTree researchers analyzed additional data on the economic disparities faced by Black Americans.
In 2024, the median household income for Black families was about $56,000, while White families earned about $88,000.
“Black workers earn less than white workers in nearly every major industry,” the report found.
In financial services, which include banking, insurance and real estate, Black workers make 30.4 percent less than White workers ($80,792 versus $116,120). In the retail, transportation, and utilities fields, there’s also about a 30 percent pay gap.
By the middle of 2025, White Americans held nearly 84 percent of the nation’s wealth. Black Americans? Just 3.4 percent, despite representing nearly 14 percent of the population.
The data “illustrates just how high a mountain that remains to be climbed for Black Americans when it comes to building wealth and getting access to homeownership,” said Matt Schulz, LendingTree chief consumer finance analyst.
So, why are we still here? Why is the gap just as wide as it was when the Fair Housing Act passed?
The gap in Black homeownership that still exists is the result of a long history of being held back by lower family wealth, employment discrimination and pay gaps.
Home equity is a major reason the typical White family has accumulated significantly more wealth than the average Black family.
For many White families, their home equity has been a massive financial head start. They’ve used it to start businesses or pass it on to their children, creating a legacy of security that lasts for generations. But for Black families, the path to prosperity has been blocked by unfair lending practices, some of which are still present today.
During the 1930s, the government literally color-coded our neighborhoods to decide who was worthy of a mortgage and who wasn’t.
If you lived in a White community, your area was marked green, indicating the federal government would back your loan. Black neighborhoods were marked red. This “redlining” unfairly signaled to banks that these areas were too risky. Without a government guarantee to fall back on, banks simply refused to lend to Black borrowers.
After World War II, White veterans could use low-interest, government-backed loans to buy homes through the GI Bill. But Black vets, who had served their country too, were largely shut out of taking advantage of the housing benefit. As an example, a 1947 Ebony magazine survey found severe racial discrimination in the administration of GI Bill benefits in Mississippi, finding that out of more than 3,200 Department of Veterans Affairs home loans issued to veterans in the state, only two were awarded to Black veterans.
The predatory lending that defined the Great Recession largely targeted Black borrowers, many of whom had high enough credit scores and income to qualify for a traditional, low-interest mortgage. Still, they were frequently steered toward exploitatively priced subprime loans with ballooning interest rates.
We know that homes in Black neighborhoods are consistently undervalued compared to similar homes in White neighborhoods, according to a 2022 report from the Brookings Institution, which looked at data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Part of the reason is appraisal bias.
The data showed that homes in Black neighborhoods are valued roughly 21 percent to 23 percent below what their valuations would be in non-Black neighborhoods.
“Altogether, the evidence strongly suggests that appraisers introduce systemic bias that favors white neighborhoods,” according to the report.
We need to know this American history — it’s not just Black history — because it puts all these findings into perspective.
“We know systemic racism has not disappeared from the housing market,” Schulz said.
Even if you’re comparing two families with the same income, the same degrees, and the same solid credit scores, a home still doesn’t pay off for a Black family the way it does for a White one.
The path forward isn’t just about individual families working harder, saving more and maintaining a good credit score. It is critical that we acknowledge the past so we don’t keep repeating its bad parts.
As a nation, we need to finish the work of the Fair Housing Act. It’s about demanding fair appraisals, equal pay and lending that doesn’t penalize a neighborhood because of the color of the people living in it.
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