More Immigrants, Latinos Evicted from Foreclosed Homes
May 15th, 2009 by 
Joseph Smith
A report from the Pew Hispanic Center on foreclosure rates in counties across the U.S. stated that there are more foreclosure houses in counties that have bigger share of immigrants.
Pew studied three major aspects of the U.S. housing sector: homeownership trends from 1995 to mid-2008 among ethnic groups, lending trends for blacks and Hispanics from 2006 to 2007, and foreclosure rates in 3,141 counties across the country.
The report also stated that foreign born Latinos accounted for the greatest share of all foreclosed homes formerly owned by immigrants.
Among the reasons cited by Pew are the probability that immigrants became attracted to areas where housing projects were booming, that immigrants found more jobs in counties with more housing development activities, and that immigrants do not have the background, skills and resources to save their houses from becoming foreclosed homes.
However, Pew researchers also acknowledge that there may be other factors that cause data to show that there are more foreclosed homes in areas with large numbers of immigrants. They said they cannot assert that immigration levels by themselves alone push up foreclosure rates in a county.
Nevertheless, the researchers cite the cases of Atlanta and Las Vegas which attracted a lot of immigrant workers during the construction boom and which are now battered by construction losses and large numbers of foreclosed homes.
According to Pew, the rise-and-fall cycle of the housing sector since 1995 has cut down the homeownership gap between white Americans and ethnic minorities. As of 2008, nearly 75 percent of white Americans own homes while about 59 percent of Asians are owners, nearly 49 percent of Hispanics own homes and nearly 48 percent of blacks are owners.
But Pew researchers found that more Latinos and blacks borrowed from the subprime market than whites. In 2007, nearly 28 percent of home mortgage loans taken out by Hispanic American borrowers and nearly 34 percent of loans given to black borrowers were high-rate mortgage loans while only 10.5 percent of mortgage loans given to whites were high-priced.
Also, the annual percentage rate given to blacks was around three points higher than the usual rate for a fixed-rate 30-year loan. For Latinos, the annual percentage rate given was around 2.5 points greater than the typical mortgage loan.
Additionally, blacks and Hispanics took out higher amounts of mortgage loans, increasing their risks of having their houses turned to foreclosed homes.
