The Great Recession's Most Unfortunate Victim: Homeownership

MISC13-1: Homeownership rates continue to plummet throughout the country, disproportionately penalizing African Americans, Hispanics, and younger people.  Recent data have ratified the importance of credit scores and down payments in predicting loan performance, leading to a trend towards tighter loan underwriting.  In addition, the policy steps that have been imposed on the lending industry to protect homeowners from foreclosure, prevent future lending problems, and punish perceived bad actors compound the losses from bad loans and encourage even more conservative lending.  Policies need to change if we wish to continue making homeownership for the broadest group of eligible borrowers a reality in the United States.  

On Thursday, November 14, 2013, Rob Couch, author of the new paper,The Great Recession’s Most Unfortunate Victim: Homeownership, will come to the Harvard Kennedy School.  (Event information here.)