SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- While the U.S. homeownership rate has recently seen an uptick, the ownership rate for Asian Americans continues to lag behind the national average, said a new report released Tuesday.
The homeownership rate for white Americans has been consistently above 71 percent from 2016 to 2019, while the number for Asian Americans has been above 53 percent over the same time period, lower than the national average of 65 percent, according to the Snapshot of Race and Home Buying in America report released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
Among other minority groups, the ownership rates for African Americans and Hispanic Americans have been 41 percent and 45 percent, respectively, in the same period.
"While the increase in the overall homeownership rate is encouraging, there continues to be a significant racial homeownership gap in America that needs to be addressed," said the NAR in a statement.
According to the report, the U.S. state which has the highest homeownership rate for Asian Americans is South Carolina at 71 percent, followed by Florida at 70 percent.
The U.S. state of California, which has a large Asian immigrant population, has seen a homeownership rate of 59 percent, partly because of the state's high home prices.
The report examines the homeownership rate among each race in 2018 using American Community Survey data by state. It also looks into the characteristics of who purchases homes, why they purchase, what they purchase, and the financial background for buyers based on race.
Among Asian American home buyers, the report finds that their median income is 111,770 U.S. dollars and the median home price is 435,000 dollars.
What the report finds unique to these buyers is that they typically had 38,000 dollars of student loan debt and 22 percent of them were rejected because of an insufficient down payment.
