Better Serving Black Homebuyers

Explore

Tri-Sector Approach to Better Prepare Homebuyers

The U.S. has a wide and worsening racial homeownership gap. This project examines barriers and challenges that many Black homebuyers face, and proposes tri-sector strategies to help prepare more households to buy their own home. 

Welcome to the NewImpact.share page for Better Serving Black Homebuyers. This site includes in-depth details and findings from the project, which NewImpact led in partnership with the

Black Home Initiative⁠

, convened by Civic Commons.

This project, which ran from April to July 2022, focused on the challenge of better preparing low- to moderate-income Black households to purchase homes—as a key lever in building generational wealth.

We invite you to explore these pages, and

contact us⁠

directly if your organization is interested in our work from this project.

What’s Inside:

⁠

Concept in Action⁠

⁠

Heard & Learned⁠

⁠

About NewImpact⁠

⁠

A Tri-Sector Strategy to Better Serve Black Homebuyers

⁠

In the U.S., homeownership drives generational wealth. Many Black homebuyers–-particularly low- to moderate-income households–-face lasting impacts of systemic racism and inequitable access to resources. NewImpact’s research helped identify opportunities and models to better prepare Black households to purchase homes and thereby build generational wealth.

The Challenge: Connecting Homebuyers to Counseling and Resources

The racial gap in homeownership in the U.S. is wide and worsening. Black households are much less likely to own homes (43% U.S. average in 2018) compared to white households (72%). This disparity is a key driver of an 8x difference in average net worth between Black families ($24,100 in 2019) and white families ($188,200). Systemic barriers have led to many Black households being financially unprepared to purchase a home due to lack of access, poor credit, high debt, and/or insufficient savings.

In addition to increasing the supply of affordable housing, there is a need to help more Black households prepare to buy homes. While homebuyer resources exist, they can be hard to find and difficult to navigate for the buyer. How might we coordinate the ecosystem of resource providers to create a better, more trusted homebuying experience for Black households?

Recommendation: A Coordinated Intake and Referral Process and Technology Platform

Increasing the number of “ready buyers” (sufficient credit, savings, income) is key to improving individual outcomes (i.e., mortgage approval and successful purchase) and growing the pool of Black buyers in the market. Many organizations across sectors provide services to improve buyer readiness, but with a significant opportunity to share data and resources.

A coordinated intake process powered by a “Homebuyer Help Platform” will bring together counselors, lenders, realty, and other organizations as members in a self-sustaining model, to facilitate referrals and prepare more buyers for homeownership.

Resources Leveraged and Benefits Reaped

Resources Leveraged and Benefits Reaped

Private sector

Types of organizations

For-profit lenders, Realty, Developers

Resources Leveraged

Membership fees and referral commissions

Communication channels to refer buyers to platform

Information on loan products and housing availability

Benefits Reaped

Lead generation: get more ready buyers

Community Reinvestment Act credit

Networked counseling capacity

Public sector

Types of organizations

Government housing offices at local, state, and federal levels

Resources Leveraged

Membership fee or ongoing funding

Refer buyers to coordinated intake

Existing homebuyer education classes

Benefits Reaped

Better outcomes for buyers and homeownership policy goals

Network capacity to serve more buyers

Data to measure market and outcomes and refine resource offerings

Social sector

Types of organizations

Regional lenders and credit unions, Nonprofit developers, Housing counseling agencies

Resources Leveraged

Membership fees and referral commissions

Communication channels to refer buyers to platform

Adoption of platform

Benefits Reaped

Lead generation: get more ready buyers

Serve more buyers as part of CDFI and community mission

Increased counseling capacity and shared revenue

⁠

A Detailed View of How the Resources and Benefits Flow

Within each sector, there are a number of different types of organizations with their own resources and interests in this problem and its solution. The image below shows more detail on how each type of organization relates to this solution concept.

(Click image to expand)

⁠

BHB Brainstorm Innovation Day - Give_get.jpg

⁠

Project Recommendations: A Tri-Sector Strategy

The presentation deck below includes:

A description of the high-level challenges faced by low- to moderate-income homebuyers in the Pierce and King County regions.

Visualizations used to pull together insights on the challenges and identify key leverage points for improvement and innovation.

Recommendations related to a coordinated intake platform, designed with the goal of scaling network capacity to prepare more low- to moderate-income Black homebuyers.

⁠

Download

⁠

(If the embed below does not work, click the link to the left 👈)

⁠

If you or your organization is interested in helping pilot one of our programs in your community, please

contact us⁠

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.