Nearly half of all renters responding to a new survey said the roadblocks in their way of buying a house — high prices, high loan costs, and a tight inventory of homes for sale — are just too great to overcome.
Indeed, 48% of the 4,400 renters polled by NeighborWorks America said they don’t see homeownership in the cards, ever. That finding is in direct contrast to the 15% of respondents who said buying a house is "a very real possibility." About one out of four, 26%, said owning a home is "somewhat possible."
The poll was conducted earlier this month by Morning Consult on behalf of NeighborWorks, a nonprofit affordable housing and community development organization.
Optimism regarding homebuying varies across age groups, income cohorts, and race, with Generation Z renters being the most gung-ho. Half of the Gen Zers said they believe homeownership is at least "somewhat possible," while only one in five Baby Boomers said they feel the same way.
Within the Gen Z group, Black renters stood out with “significantly” greater enthusiasm; two-thirds of those renters said they think it's either "very" or "somewhat" possible for them to become homeowners. That's opposed to 54% of Hispanic renters and just 33% of White renters who said the same.
The overall pessimism, though, stands out in stark contrast to the various pathways to homeownership that today’s renters have available to them — options past generations did not have. One is by taking advantage of one or more of the 2,400 different home down payment assistance programs available nationwide. Another is by accessing the services of free housing counseling.
Two out of three participants in the NeighborWorks survey said they’ve had difficulty saving for a down payment on a home. Yet, many also are not aware of assistance programs. More than half of respondents said there is lack of loan assistance programs available to them.
Some of Kimberly Petrey’s clients are actually surprised when they learn about the $5,000 in help they might qualify for in her state. That money is available from the hoMEworks program offered by the Maine State Housing Authority.
Counselors like Petrey, who is the housing services manager at the Kennebec Valley Community Action Program in Waterville, Maine, help put would-be homebuyers in touch with sources of down payment aid.
According to Nellie Welton, vice president of homeownership programs at NeighborWorks, counselors affiliated with her group provided almost $74 million in down payment assistance and facilitated more than $112 million in down payment assistance through other sources.
Besides bridging that gap, housing counselors often walk renters through the various steps they need to take to make ownership possible, then do some proverbial hand-holding with them on their journeys from renters to homeowners.
That’s especially true when it comes to securing financing, a process renters tend to fear the most. More than two out of five of the survey respondents who have tried to buy a house in the past said they had difficulty navigating the mortgage maze. To many people, getting a mortgage is so dizzying that working with a counselor is likely the best step they can take.
Housing counseling often provides much more than is generally understood, said Nicole DiGeronimo of Avesta Housing in Portland, Maine, the largest provider of affordable housing in New England. “Our office and many counselors around the country support renters [who are] pursuing homeownership with financial planning, debt reduction, and saving strategies,” she said.
