During the COVID-19 pandemic, home prices soared across California and the nation. Albanita Erebia and her fiancé Daniel Savala noticed and knew to act quickly.

“We were scared the market was going to keep going up,” Savala said, who has three children with one more on the way with Erebia.

Erebia, 32, and Savala, 40, struggled for three months with researching and touring listings only to than be outbid by other prospective buyers. Finally, the couple was able to secure their perfect starter home: a $310,000 single-family home in North Sacramento.

Their story is one of many that make up the coronavirus pandemic home buying trend. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, “The national homeownership rates for U.S. Hispanics is climbed faster than any other ethnic group last year.”

The report also found that “homeownership rates among U.S. Latinos soared to 51.4% last year, compared to the same time of year in 2017 when the rate was at 45.5%.”

Local real estate agents and realtors noticed the increase.

Edgar Sanchez, a Sacramento real estate agent said, “In 2020, Latinos really came out and started pushing the envelope to purchase homes.”

Sanchez, who has worked in Sacramento real estate for the past 17 years, believes the uptick is partly due to Latinos now feeling more comfortable and educated about home-buying. During the 2008 housing crisis, many within the Latino community faced foreclosures and high-risk mortgages.

Despite the state’s recent record-breaking housing market, Latino community members are making gains.

According to the California Department of Finance, “the median home price of a California home today is a whopping $827,940. In the Sacramento region, the median home price of a home is $515,000, a 21.2% spike from August of last year.”

Eight years ago, a former boss of Savala offered to see him a new model home in Sacramento for $130,000. At the time, Savala declined under the idea that affording a home was not realistic for someone of his background. Since then, he has voiced his regret at allowing his hesitancies to drive his previous decision.

However, some Latino families like Savala’s are using lessons learned from the Great Recession, such as finding extra sources of income and avoiding the high-risk buyers took on in the early 2000s.

He and his wife plan to use their property to provide extra, steady income. The couple is converting their detached garage into an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) in order to rent it out to a future tenant.

“I’m reinvesting this back into myself,” Erebia said.

CLOSING THE GAP

Although homeownership rates among Latinos are rising, they still are behind those of their non-Latino White counterparts on a state and national level.

According to 2019 Census American Community Survey data:
“The average homeownership rate for California households is about 55%. For Latinos, the homeownership rate was 44.1% in 2018, compared to 63.2% of whites, 59.7% of Asian or Pacific Islanders and 36.8% of Blacks.”

Another report published un 2016 by the California Budget & Policy Center found that the national median wealth of a white family was $171,000. For Latino families, who are less likely to own a home than white families, had a media wealth of $20,700.

Governor Newsom and his administration is leveraging $100 million of the state’s $80 billion budget surplus in a new effort to help first-time home buyers. According to the budget, The First Time Homebuyer Assistance Program “helps first-time homebuyers make a down payment, secure a loan, and pay closing costs on a home.”

The Program is a primary resource to help families secure down payment assistance. Secretary of the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency Lourdes M. Castro Ramírez said, “the First Time Homebuyer Assistance Program is very much designed and focused on bridging the homeownership wealth gap that exists among Latinos, Black Californians and low- to moderate-income households.”

LEARNING HOW TO BUY A HOME

Latinos home buyers have also expressed the importance of speaking to an expert so that they may better understand the home-buying process.

Paula Vilescaz, a lobbyist and San Juan Unified School District President, used her own experience of buying a single-family home to become a real estate agent who also coaches Latino first-time buyers how to save for a down payment and purchase a home.

In order to afford the down payment of her town home, Vilescaz used both her savings and received a loan from her retirement plan. She also qualified for a separate loan from the Federal Housing Administration.

Villescaz began searching for a home in 2017. The house-hunting process was competitive, and she remembers placing at least 10 offers on different homes. Villescaz nearly gave up after months of being denied or outbid. Until one day she finally secured her townhome after the highest offer fell through.

Villescaz reflected on growing up in unstable housing conditions, as her family faced many evictions and were forced to move time and time again. “I knew that homeownership and owning property is certainly one of the main ways in America that we establish any kind of intergenerational wealth and so I had always been interested,” Villescaz, 32, said. “It was always a goal of mine to own a home.”

After her home-buying experience, Vallescaz recommends that young home buyers should seek out a trusted real estate agent and to do the research to become familiar with any programs for first-time buyers.

“My learned lesson was that it wasn’t as far out of reach as I thought it was,” she said. “It’s definitely a challenge but it’s not an insurmountable one.”