ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (KYW Newsradio) — The housing market has taken a drastic turn toward higher rents and mortgages. Finding an affordable house is a challenge, as prices have surged more than 30% over the last few years.
Redlining, gentrification, sky-high home prices and hard-to-obtain mortgages are just some of the pitfalls for people of color who want to become homeowners.
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Marcia Fudge, who spoke Monday at the 113th NAACP Convention in Atlantic City, said businesses and investors buy properties in Black and brown communities and raise the rents so that people can’t afford to live in the communities where they grew up.
Her department is working to change that. She said HUD is committed to putting more low- and moderate-income housing on the market and giving more young people the opportunity to become homeowners.
“We know that in a normal year, investors buy almost 30% of all the houses that are sold,” she explained. “They hold them and raise the prices in the market, so we’re working on that.”
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Fudge understands this firsthand. Her home is located in a predominately Black neighborhood that borders a mostly white neighborhood, but is valued at $25,000 less than houses two doors down in the latter.
HUD is also working to stop racially biased home appraisals with its PAVE project, which exposes the practice, and adding assistance for down payments.
“Most people of color and low-income people can afford rent but not a down payment,” said Fudge, “so we are getting down payment assistance so we can build that in on the back end of a mortgage.
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“We know that most Black and brown people have difficulty obtaining mortgages because of student debt,” she added. “We are now recalculating and neutralizing student debt up to a certain amount.”
This makes people credit-worthy. Loans would be 40 years instead of the standard 30, which brings down mortgage and interest payments over time.
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