Study highlights racial disparities in nation’s leading housing markets

New data from LendingTree (NASDAQ:TREE) has determined that Black households own a disproportionately small share of homes relative to population size in each of the nation”™s 50 major metro areas.

LendingTree reported that Black people make up an average of 14.88% of the population across the nation”™s 50 largest metros, but they only own an average of 10.02% of homes. For comparison, white people account for an average of 58.21% of the population nationwide, but they own an average of 70.51% of homes.

Salt Lake City has the smallest difference between the share of homes owned by Black people and the Black share of the population that”™s Black ”“ 1.68% of the population in the Utah capital identify as Black, while Black homeowners own 0.57% of owner-occupied housing units. In contrast, Memphis has the biggest difference ”“ Black people make up 46.70% of the population, the largest among the 50 metros, but only own 34.99% of homes.

“Owing to a multitude of systematic challenges that they must often face ”“ including having less intergenerational wealth and having fewer opportunities to access credit ”“ homeownership rates among Black people are disproportionately low across the nation,” said. “This goes to show that while housing discrimination isn”™t legal, it can still be very difficult for Black Americans to overcome the barriers that stand between them and homeownership.”