RealEstateEconomyWatch.com

A steady decline in minority homeownership has driven the national homeownership rate to its lowest level in a decade, according to data released by the Census Bureau for the first quarter of 2010.

That national rate now stands at 67.1 percent, a drop of 0.1 percent from the fourth quarter of 2009 and 0.2 percent from the first quarter of 2009.  At its peak in the second quarter of 2004 the homeownership rate reached 69.4 percent of all US households.

Homeownership among African-American households fell to 45.6 percent in the first quarter from 46.1 percent a year ago and 47 percent in the first quarter of 2007.

Among Hispanics, homeownership also declined, from 50.1 percent in 2007 to 48.5 percent in the first quarter of 2010.  Among whites, homeownership fell from 75.3 percent in 2007 to 74.5 percent in the first quarter of 2010.

Homeownership has fallen more in the West since 2005 than any other region, from 64.9 percent to 61.9.  In the Northeast, which has the lowest homeownership rate of any region, homeownership has fallen only 1 percent in five years, from 65.4 percent to 64.4 percent.

During the second Bush Administration, increasing minority homeownership was a priority.  ‘Three-quarters of Anglos own their homes, and yet less than 50 percent of African Americans and Hispanics own homes. That ownership gap signals that something might be wrong in the land of plenty. And we need to do something about it,” said President Bush in June, 2002.

He set goals of 5.5 million more homeowners by 2010 - and a million more minority homeowners by 2010, goals that were not achieved in light of the housing crisis.